


A Series Of Covert Disasters

by Closer



Series: Pizza-Verse [3]
Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, M/M, Pizza, Yet still more dorky movie quotes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-17
Updated: 2011-09-17
Packaged: 2017-10-23 19:52:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 23,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/254239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Closer/pseuds/Closer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harvey's take on the events of Pizza And A Movie, including more sex than can be measured without algebraic calculations, accidental flirting with Tom Keller, the Trauma Drama of the Grapefruit Knife, the reformation of Kyle, and the importance of having a home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Since this is Harvey's version of the Pizzaverse AU, and Harvey was the one actually attacked at one point, it's a little more intense than the others. Not a lot more, but I thought enough that I should warn for descriptions of assault and some PTSD in later parts.

It wasn't that Harvey thought about sex all the time.

Harvey thought about _winning_ all the time.

As competitive sports went, sex wasn't really great in terms of discerning who had won or lost. There were too many variables. But, on the other hand, it wasn't a bad way to pass the time when not winning: sweaty, filthy, athletic, moaning, writhing --

Harvey did think about sex. Vividly. Just...as a sidebar.

And there was a certain sense of triumph in taking someone to bed. Plenty of people had made passes at him, been the aggressors, but Harvey preferred a challenge. He liked to be the one to chase.

When he was an ADA working for Cameron, so far back when, he'd never considered Donna someone to chase, because Harvey was a professional. She was the ultimate unattainable -- she'd never have slept with him -- but Harvey wouldn't have done her the disservice of making a play, either. She was worth more to him than that. (If once in a while he had private moments with his hand and the thought of her long red hair, well, you couldn't prosecute a guy for dreaming.)

The fact that his mentor, his _hero_ , hadn't shown her the same respect was what tipped Harvey over from doubt into action. Had he known Cameron was making Donna uncomfortable, had he seen it for himself, he would have put a stop to it (potentially a career-ending stop with a right hook to Cameron's smug-fucker jaw) but Donna didn't want that.

Somewhere between Harvey's first day when she'd taken him under her wing and his last day when he'd walked out with his arm around her shoulders to show everyone that she wasn't being driven out, she was _leaving_ with him, what Donna wanted had become of paramount importance to him.

Also, she knew about his thing with his fellow ADA, Clayton, and she'd never once been mean about how Harvey, slick ladies' man, went mortifyingly tongue-tied around him. The guy just smelled really good and was smart and attractive and all he'd wanted to do was push Clayton down over a table in one of the claustrophobic meeting rooms and give him a blow job.

But Harvey's one youthful attempt at a boyfriend had made it barely past groping before the other kid got scared (of the world which was unkind to gay kids, of his parents, maybe of Harvey's arrogance) and broke it off. So he was not, per se, experienced in these things, and buying books or learning from porn wasn't really an option when you worked for the State of New York. Plus Cameron had always said -- and Cameron did have useful advice to give -- that there was no teacher like experience.

He'd dreamed about Cameron, more than once, but he'd made sure never to let it interfere with the work.

Harvey was an ADA for the State, and then suddenly he was a gunslinger at Pearson Hardman. Neither position was one in which he could have gone to a gay bar without a fair amount of trepidation.

So he stuck to women, which was fine, because he loved women -- loved their eyes and breasts and asses and legs, loved sex in any number of positions, liked high heels digging into his thighs, the way they moaned, sharp fingernails raked down his shoulders.

But once in a while he'd catch the eye of one of the male associates, or one of the partners (all men but for Jessica) and think, _I'd hit that so hard his last ex would need a cigarette._

He sublimated it into admiration -- of their clothes, of their lifestyle, of the expensive liquor and shiny watches and hot dates. He was never entirely successful, but at least it kept him from pulling another Clayton. He grew into himself. He grew up. He got over it.

(Not really.)


	2. Chapter 2

"Wow," Donna said, the first time she saw his new place, turning in circles to take in the wall of glass, the high endless ceiling, the white carpet and the way it looked huge without any furniture in it. He'd asked her to help him move and given her money to bring pizza along with her, but the (reasonably few) boxes were still on their way up in the elevator and the pizza was abandoned on the kitchen island while she admired the view.

"I know," Harvey said, arms wrapped around his chest, not hugging himself, because that was stupid, just...well, whatever, it felt like his heart was going to burst so he had to do something.

"You are going to get so much ass with a place like this," Donna announced.

"Well, that's the plan," Harvey said, as the boxes arrived in the _private glass elevator_ , how cool was that? "Okay, grab a box."

"Don't you have any furniture?" she asked, as they began to unload. "Jesus, what's in this?"

"My wok, I think," he said absently, hauling the boxes onto the carpet. "My last place came furnished."

"Where are you sleeping?"

"I bought a futon," he said with a shrug, hauling a box of books over to his bookshelf. "It's being delivered tomorrow."

"Harvey, you can't get a place like this and then furnish it with a futon," she said. She held up a box. "Kitchen?"

"Yes, please. I'll furnish it, eventually," he answered.

The truth was, he didn't care if he had to sleep on the floor and eat standing up. This was _his home_. He'd put a down payment on it and had a mortgage he was going to pay off as soon as he could, and in the meantime he didn't care what was in it. This belonged to him, and he'd never have to move again if he didn't want to. Nobody could come into his home without asking, and he could paint the walls or remodel the bathroom or do whatever he wanted. There was a lock on the door and a security code for the elevator.

"You should see your eyes," Donna said, shoving a box of DVDs over to him with a foot. "You look like the kid that broke into the candy store."

Home. His home. Nobody else's. All his.

Harvey was not a possessive man, generally, but in this he was willing to make an exception.


	3. Chapter 3

Harvey wasn't sure if the time his date flashed the pizza guy was the first time Mike delivered to him, but much later Mike would assure him it was, and he trusted Mike's memory in these things (if not, always, his honesty -- devious little punk). He did remember the event itself.

Pizza wasn't especially classy or impressive. It was messy and cheap. But a good number of Harvey's dates were bartenders, waitresses, party girls, women who didn't come home with him until well after dark and usually hadn't eaten much. He found that sex, followed by hot food, was an excellent way to ensure more sex in the morning.

Her name was Marie -- Harvey was a gentleman, he never forgot their names -- and by the time they stumbled into his condo her shirt was mostly off and her bra was already in his pocket. He'd gauged her correctly (exhibitionist) and they made it to the bedroom but he deftly bypassed the bed. What she really wanted, and what Harvey was more than happy to give her, was a good time pressed up against the glass: the delicious feeling of exposure and safety that came from fucking in front of a window fifty floors off the ground, with Harvey still wearing most of his clothing.

She was holding his pants around his thighs with her heels, for God's sake, when she came, twisting against him. She pulled his hair hard enough to trip him over into orgasm, something of a pleasant surprise.

He carried her over to the bed, dropped her laughing onto it, and stood over her, cleaning himself up, taking care of the condom, doing up his fly and tucking his shirt back in. He'd lost his jacket somewhere, but she tugged him down with two fingers hooked in his vest and sighed happily.

"That was amazing," she mumbled, pressing naked up against him.

"You like this?" he asked, confident of the answer.

"Mmhm."

They kissed for a couple of minutes until Harvey leaned back, gave her a smile, and asked, "Hungry?"

"I could eat," she said, and he dug his phone out of his pocket. "Was that in there the whole time?"

"Wasn't my phone you felt," he told her, and speed-dialled Rollo's. It was in his phone under Rollo's Thank You Donna (she'd programmed it). "I know a good late-night place. What do you like on pizza?"

"Anything, I don't know," she giggled, groping him. (Round two: wait until after the food arrives, Harvey.) "Pepperoni?"

He placed the order with her hand down his pants, and they were still making out lazily when the delivery guy knocked on his door. Harvey stumbled out of bed, found his wallet on the kitchen island, made sure his fly was done up, and opened the door.

"Great, thank you," he said, taking the food the delivery guy held out. Nice-looking guy, weird brown-blond hair, blue eyes, young. He was counting out the cash when Marie called, "Baby?"

Harvey's head whipped around just as Marie walked naked into the living room. Okay, _very_ exhibitionist. He turned back to the delivery guy, torn between annoyed and embarrassed, but the guy just gave him a look like he wished they could change places.

"You didn't see this," he said, because Harvey was not one to apologize, and then tipped the kid a fifty as a silent apology.

"See what?" the kid asked knowingly. Harvey closed the door.

First meeting with Michael Ross, future friend, co-worker, boyfriend, life partner, whatever: could have gone better.

Donna had always treated Rollo's as comfort food, Harvey knew, and he agreed that there was something reassuring about it. Not necessarily anything special about the food itself, but it was attached to good memories: getting the shit out of the DA's office, moving into his new place, celebrating accomplishments, making Senior Partner. It was a sense-memory thing he couldn't shake, and on late nights or when he had court in the morning, it helped.

It was both a late night and a court morning the next time he ordered from Rollo's, and he needed some kind of fuel to keep going if he was going to finish the brief and destroy the prosecution's case against his client before court at eight-thirty. When the cute pizza guy showed up again with his food, Harvey actually had some kind of primitive Pavlovian reaction to the smell of it.

"You should try the cheese in the crust," the guy said, while Harvey fumbled uncoordinatedly through his wallet. "It'll blow your mind."

He was barely processing the words, but replied on instinct. "I'm a traditionalist, and also not a child. Tell Rollo he's saving my life."

"I'm sure she'll appreciate that."

"Rollo's a woman?" Harvey had sudden fantasies about this mysterious woman. He'd never actually thought about who cooked his food, but he would be willing to marry Rollo to ensure a steady supply of it. "Is she single?"

Smooth, Harvey. Nicely done.

The kid didn't even notice. " _Every woman is a mystery to be solved_."

Harvey had sudden fantasies about the pizza guy. He barely knew anyone who'd heard of Don Juan De Marco, let alone actually seen it. Plus the pizza was still so hot it was steaming.

YOUR PIZZA WAS DELIVERED TO YOU BY **MIKE** the pizza box solemnly informed him. Harvey made a mental note.

The next time he pulled an all nighter, he asked for Mike specifically. He didn't remember coming to the door fresh from the shower in nothing but pajama pants, but Mike apparently remembered this vividly.


	4. Chapter 4

Somewhere in those first few months as Senior Partner, with an incompetent arrogant associate and Louis always gunning for him, Harvey stopped eating regularly. He did notice, he just didn't have time to care. He wasn't sleeping much either, but he had to prove himself and make sure Jessica didn't regret the promotion.

When the headache started one morning he did stop and eat, but the pain and dizziness didn't fade. By lunch he was regretting eating, because the hot dog he wanted from the cart out front of Pearson Hardman smelled _horrifying_. He bought it, looked at it, and then dropped it in the trash, opting for coffee instead.

And why was it so goddamned hot in his office when he went back to it?

About an hour later, Donna got up from her desk and went somewhere, which was vaguely worrying, but Harvey was kind of worried about everything at that point. When she returned with Jessica in tow, Harvey went from vaguely worried to very specifically worried.

Jessica walked in and stared at him. Harvey squinted back.

"O-kay," she said, in the voice which told him he'd messed something up but in an adorable rather than annoying way. Subtle nuances, but he could tell. "Here's what's going to happen. You're going to lie down on your couch, Donna's going to tell everyone you're in an all-afternoon meeting, and once I'm done with my very important work, I'm going to take you home."

"I have a meeting," Harvey pointed out. He did, too, it wasn't a fake meeting.

"Louis can handle it," Jessica said.

"Noooo," Harvey groaned, but the couch he was somehow already on felt really good. Cool and soft. Oh, this was a great couch, such a good furniture decision on his part.

"If you had been eating and sleeping, Harvey, you wouldn't now be dying of the very mild cold that the associates are suffering from," Jessica said.

Harvey fixed Donna with a sudden sharp look. "Narc," he announced.

"Sorry, boss, needed the big guns," Donna said. She didn't look at all sorry.

"Et tu, Brute? I didn't know Benedict Arnold had red hair."

"Harvey," Jessica said sharply. "Stay. Sleep. God, I promoted a child to Senior Partner," she added as she left.

Donna pressed some kind of cold tablet on him, speaking in a very sympathetic voice as she called him about a thousand different synonyms for idiot. He did sleep a little, restlessly, watching the light through his windows steadily darken, until Jessica returned.

"This is a one-time-only affair, because I know what a bitch it is to be the new kid," she told him in the car, on the way to his place. "I'll take you up, we'll feed you, and then you're calling in sick. The firm has an agency, get a doctor to your place tomorrow to check you out. If this happens again, don't bother coming back to work."

"I'm sorry," he said, but he was really cold and not quite with it, and it sounded less sincere and more pathetic than he intended.

"You will be," Jessica said sweetly.

When they got to his place, she inspected his kitchen while Harvey changed out of his suit. His nose had begun to run, and he was coughing painfully.

"You have two eggs and something green and unidentifiable in your fridge," she called from the kitchen.

"Long week," he answered hoarsely.

"Are you in bed?"

"Why Jessica, I never knew you felt that way," he said, but he quickly sat down on the bed before she could come in and yell at him some more. It was obedience in spirit, if not in letter. Jessica came to the doorway.

"You know anywhere that delivers soup around here?" she asked.

Harvey considered the situation carefully.

"Can I have pizza?" he tried. Jessica just looked at him. "You can have some..."

"Number?" she sighed. He handed her his phone.

"Speed dial four. They have my card on file."

She disappeared into the other room, presumably to order food, and Harvey decided to lie down for a little while.

He had vague memories of the food arriving, and his great cheer at seeing Mike, because Mike meant hot food. He remembered complaining about Jessica ordering veggie pizza. He remembered Jessica leaving, after which he crawled miserably into bed, the feeling of having failed her warring with the self-pity of his own body ruthlessly betraying him.

He was sick for four days. For three of those at least, he lived on leftover pizza.

Jessica, perhaps in a moment of mercy, didn't even scold him when he showed up at work again, but she did give him a two-month curfew, forcing him out of the office at six every day.

Mike, the next time he delivered, wrote _In Sicily, women are more dangerous than shotguns_ on the inside lid of his pizza box. Harvey couldn't have agreed more.

He got into the habit of asking for Mike before putting in his order, because when anyone else delivered it, his fries would be soggy and inedible. Mike, through some magic bicycle trick (possibly he had a flying bike? Harvey was willing to entertain the idea) always got his food there hot. And he genuinely looked forward to seeing him, which was a little weird, because they rarely exchanged more than a few words -- maybe a smart remark from Mike or a movie quote, and then Harvey would tip him and send him on his way.

He liked the consistency of it, the way it was easy, because most of his interactions with people weren't easy. If he wasn't trying to get a client to listen to him, he was trying to get a woman into bed. He liked challenges, but he valued comfort, too.

"Hey," one of his dates said to him once -- Zelda, what a name -- when he had closed the door behind Mike. She was leaning against the island, elbows on the granite, chin in her hands. "Do you like, know him or something?"

"Who, the pizza guy?" Harvey set the food down and slid behind her, arm around her waist, nuzzling into her neck. "He's just the pizza guy."

"You don't watch much porn, do you?" she asked.

"I enjoy the real thing," he told her as she reached for the pizza, ass rubbing tantalizingly against him.

"He was totally flirting with you. You know, I read this news article about this woman? She was hooking on the side during her breaks at Dunkin Donuts."

"Seems like an efficient use of time, to me," he replied. "Not the same thing, however. I don't think Mike solicits between tips."

"He was cute, though. You'd look good together," Zelda said. Harvey sucked in a breath against the old caution and the desire that never quite fully went away and the taboo nature of it, of his bed partner picturing him with another man. She grinned at him over her shoulder. "You like that idea?"

"I'd like a slice of pizza," he told her, and bent over her to steal one.

But it was a shock, being faced with the thought of it after so many years spent ignoring it. After all, ten years had changed a lot of things, and it wasn't like he was an associate anymore. He slept with enough women that if Pearson Hardman were that prudish, he'd already be on the outs for promiscuity. But they weren't; not the most liberal firm, but by far not the most conservative. Jessica had drafted an amazing anti-discrimination policy a year or two back and Pearson Hardman had gay associates and paralegals, even a Senior Partner who was out (discreetly, but he brought his husband to firm dinners and parties, so not that discreet).

As a Senior Partner, Harvey was suddenly faced with the idea that he could take a man home if he wanted and nobody who mattered would care.

On the other hand, he was in his thirties, and being that inexperienced that old was just embarrassing. Better to stick with what you knew.

Didn't stop him from, just occasionally, answering Mike's knock without a shirt on. And once very daringly in his boxers. But to be fair, it wasn't like he was trying to flash the guy; he genuinely did have a woman in his bedroom who really was worth leaving his pants off for. The fact that Mike's wolf-whistle got him a little hard wasn't relevant. At all. In any way.

It gave him a weird thrill that he tried not to examine too closely, every time a woman witnessed their interaction and got that speculative look on her face.


	5. Chapter 5

The whole Tom Keller thing was such a complete clusterfuck that it was frankly amazing Harvey managed to close him at all. On the other hand, Harvey was confident that his application to have his photo placed under "Amazing" in the dictionary would be approved any day now.

Harvey didn't play tennis, but he did play baseball and he liked _watching_ football. So he knew who Tom Keller was, the millionaire who ran a fantasty football website, and when the guy walked into the batting cage next to Harvey's at the athletic club, Harvey gave him a nod and kept swinging.

"Step deeper," Keller said, after about ten minutes.

"Excuse me?" Harvey asked, dropping back from the plate.

"Step deeper, man, you're not getting enough leverage," Keller said, swinging with a grunt. "Bet you're a pitcher, huh? Pitchers never go deep enough."

"This from a dot-commie?"

Keller laughed and swung again. "Yeah? What do you do, professional scout?"

"Lawyer," Harvey said, and went back to swinging, though he did step a little deeper and watched, gratified, as his distance on the monitor jumped slightly.

"See? There you go, dude," Keller said, and backed off the plate to offer a fist against the mesh fence between cages, in lieu of a handshake. Harvey, internally rolling his eyes, bumped it with his own. "Tom Keller, which I guess you knew."

"Harvey Specter," he replied. "I'm with Pearson Hardman."

Keller got a look of very unnecessary distaste on his face. "Oh man, come on. Did the short creep send you?"

Harvey grinned. "I take it you've met Louis Litt."

"Could someone please bribe him to wear a towel?"

"Better men have tried and failed," Harvey said. "Is he bothering you?"

"When has he not bothered me? Look, dude -- "

Harvey gritted his teeth against _dude_.

" -- I don't know what he offered you, but I'm so not interested in signing with him. I have a lawyer. Who might file a restraining order soon, if you get my drift."

"Hey, it doesn't have to come to that," Harvey said. "He didn't send me, I'm no fan of the guy. He's no fan of me, I just beat him out for Senior Partner. But if he's bugging you, I can help."

Keller wiped some sweat away with a sleeve and tossed his bat in the corner, leaning on the cage. "Yeah? Because man, if you can get him off my back, I'd really appreciate not being harassed every time I try to play a set."

Harvey checked his watch thoughtfully. An evening spent luring Tom Keller into his clutches (and out of Louis's) would be a very worthwhile evening even if he didn't succeed.

"Listen, this isn't the place to talk this over," he said. "Game's on in half an hour. My condo's not far. Come over, have a beer, we'll talk it out and I'll get him off your back."

Keller gave him a suspicious look. "Seriously?"

Harvey studied him. "When was the last time you just watched a game? No stats, no digital chat, no business interests, just watched one? I know the best pizza place in Manhattan..."

Keller wasn't yet thirty, but for just a moment Harvey saw a very old weariness in his face.

"That'd be cool," he said.

Harvey was winging it, mostly, because he didn't have a lot of information. Reading someone on the fly was something he hadn't done in a while and it was kind of thrilling. The man was young and cynical, grew up too fast when his website took off, probably felt like he was surrounded by asskissers all day. Jock. Pothead. He'd feel bad for him if he allowed himself to care.

Keller was mildly impressed with Harvey's condo, not the usual "Jesus you live in a palace" thing, more...pleased with Harvey's interior design. He let himself out onto the terrace for some "fresh air" and Harvey made two quick calls while he was getting high: one to Jessica to let her know he was wooing Keller, and one to Mike to order food and beg for assistance in winning the bet he'd made with Keller in the car that Rollo's was better than Pie Pub.

And then he set to working his charm.

They had a beer, watched the game, and he listened faux-sympathetically as Tom bitched about Louis and his crap, about lawyers and their general crap. He told him about his view: that Louis didn't know how to go about it but genuinely did hate to see people wasting advantages. Louis thought Tom deserved better than a frat-buddy lawyer, and Harvey couldn't disagree with that stance. Tom nodded, watched the game, nodded some more (still a little stoned) and then leaned forward, resting his hand on Harvey's leg.

Oops. Possibly the wrong brand of charm.

"I like you, man," he said. "You're _real_."

"I try to be," Harvey replied, wondering how to gently disengage Tom's hand.

Wondering if he actually wanted to. Tom wasn't terribly bright about anything except sports and code, and he wore too much eyeliner, but he was kind of built and --

"How are you? As a lawyer?" Tom asked, turning to him, their faces very close.

"Best there is," Harvey said.

"Yeah?" Tom leaned in. His hand slid up.

Harvey felt Tom's lips, felt his own mouth open against Tom's and his tongue lick across his teeth. Felt Tom put a hand to the side of his face and hold him steady while they kissed, his other hand tucked up in the curve of his thigh.

"Oh, fuck," Tom said against his mouth, and jerked back. Harvey stared at him, several wires crossing in his brain. "Oh, man, I want to sign you as my lawyer, I can't fuck my lawyer, that'd be too weird." He leaned forward, away, rubbing his face with his hands.

"Probably not a good idea," Harvey agreed.

"I'm not _high_ enough for this..." Tom groaned, looking up at him. "But you'd be cool, right? Being my lawyer?"

Harvey realized, in a moment of clarity, that Tom Keller was actually worried he would not be his lawyer _unless_ they fucked.

God damn, it was good to be the best.

"I'd sign you in a heartbeat," Harvey told him, which was true if not entirely honest. "No strings attached."

"Because you're like, ridiculous hot," Tom added. "So it's not like it would suck -- "

There was a knock at the door.

God bless Mike.

"Tell you what," Harvey said, standing. "That's the food. Get some fresh air, we'll eat, and I'll go over the standard agreement with you."

"Yeah, yeah," Tom agreed, stepping out on the terrace to smoke another joint.

By the end of the evening, when he put Tom in a cab, Harvey had a new client. Louis was going to chew his tie when he heard.

He wrote a check to Mike for a thousand dollars, equal parts commission and and a thank-you for being the best cockblock ever, and set it out as a reminder to have it delivered over to him at Rollo's.

Then he took a long shower and jerked off to what could have happened.

Tom's soft mouth would be great, sucking him off; maybe he'd be a mellow fuck, let Harvey set the pace, probably let Harvey fuck him (he wasn't entirely unfamiliar with that, though he didn't usually go for it unless his date brought it up first).

He'd bet Mike was like that too. Mike was probably funny and laid-back in bed, like he was about Harvey's occasional appearances in his boxers --

Harvey leaned against the very expensive tile in his bathroom, came all over it, and wasn't sure whether he wanted to never look either of them in the eye again or invite them both over at once.


	6. Chapter 6

Kyle, Harvey suspected, had the makings of a truly great ambulance-chaser.

He was good in court, he was a master of manipulation, and he knew which butts to kiss, but for Harvey's needs he was woefully inadequate. He didn't want to bother with paperwork, wasn't any good when he did, and he didn't like that Harvey had benched him, Kyle, the mock-trial champion since the age of sixteen. Who was winning mock trials at sixteen? Harvey wondered in a faintly put-off way if Kyle even knew what sex was. He was pretty sure he'd see Kyle on television in ten or fifteen years, offering workman's comp litigation where _We don't get paid until you get paid!_

Mike, on the other hand...

The first time Mike spent the night at Harvey's place, he didn't even think about sex, which looking back was honestly a little strange. But Harvey didn't have time to think about sex, wouldn't even have taken the time to order food and eat it if he didn't know that down the no-food road lay madness and the wrath of Jessica. He had five hundred facts to check and two three-hundred-page documents to compare. And Mike offered to help, and Harvey was too tired to turn him down even if he was the pizza guy.

In the end, around seven in the morning, he was just inhumanly grateful for Mike's help, Mike's focused presence and his uncanny memory. Mike had simply read one document, then gone through the other with a highlighter and marked every inconsistency.

Once, as he highlighted, he laughed and said, "A CLEOO!" in a perfect imitation of Inspector Clouseau. Harvey gave him a sidelong look and smiled.

"I suggest you count your beez," Mike muttered a few minutes later, still in Peter Sellers' terrible fake French accent. "You may find that one of them is missang! Ha!"

By then, Harvey suspected the lack of sleep was affecting them both, because he snorted a laugh, and he would never do anything that undignified if he'd had a good night's sleep.

"But that's a priceless Steinway," he murmured.

"Not anymahr," Mike replied, turning a page.

When Harvey came out from showering after they'd finished work, armored in his finest Big Bad Lawyer suit, Mike was sacked out on his sofa, snoring and occasionally twitching in his sleep.

This weird, hyperintelligent, geeked-out _pizza guy_ had just saved Harvey weeks of frustration and possibly a significant loss in court.

Harvey bent down and shifted Mike's head slightly so he wouldn't get a cramp, collected his paperwork, laid out another check, and made sure not to slam the door on his way out.

It never occurred to him that leaving Mike alone in his home was a bad idea, that he might try to steal from him or take advantage of the situation somehow. Mike was his pizza guy and, just now, his temporary savior. He fit into Harvey's life in a specific way, and that meant he fit into Harvey's home.

When he got home that evening, the check and the note were gone; the pizza box was in the trash with their dirty napkins, and the greasy plates they'd eaten from were in the dishwasher.

The condo felt strangely empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because the Pink Panther quotes are unusually obscure, and because it's a hilarious scene: [bees and Steinways](http://youtu.be/74YLwinLT7M).


	7. Chapter 7

And then came Lara.

Lara was almost unbelievably hot, blonde and leggy and smart, too. The fact that she was definitely mentally ill didn't register with Harvey until she tried to stab him.

He'd picked her up at a bar he sometimes went to near the firm. Harvey might sleep with a lot of women but he liked to think he didn't _use_ them; he always made sure it was understood that this was a one-night deal, not a romance, and he was offering a good time and breakfast and that was it. Lara seemed perfectly clear on this concept, though he hadn't vocalized it quite so bluntly.

But over breakfast they got to talking about cars, and Harvey mentioned he belonged to the Gotham club, which had a limited-edition Ferrari that apparently Lara was really into. So, well, why not? The sex had been fantastic (her riding him, head thrown back, loud as hell; him eating her out, enjoying the oversensitive twitches, the way she wasn't loud now because she could barely breathe) and he wasn't averse to a second round. On the understanding that it still wasn't an affair. Just some fun.

He'd taken her driving in the Ferrari, and while it wasn't ideal for sex it wasn't impossible to pull over on a dark lane outside the city and do a little fooling around, then catch a cab from the car club back to his place and do a little more.

The next morning she hadn't wanted to get out of bed, let alone leave; he'd had to be a little more persuasive than usual to make sure she left when he did.

She kept calling him. Harvey didn't want to be a dick, but he ignored her calls anyway, because who was he kidding, he was kind of a dick and she'd get the message.

Harvey only really began to suspect something was seriously wrong when he came home and found her _in his kitchen_ , food cooking on the stove.

A little tiny part of him was laughing hysterically and frantically quoting _Fatal Attraction_ , but mostly he just stared at her because she had let herself into _his home_. Nobody was supposed to be in his home unless he let them. That was the point of having this place. It belonged to him, not to her.

But...

She'd cooked dinner. And maybe he had miscommunicated somehow, hadn't made things clear to her (he hadn't answered her calls, after all). So he tried to explain to her that this was his home, and she needed to ask first, and from there it just escalated until it was a fight that somehow turned into sex, God, what an idiot he was --

He tried not to think about that.

His memory of the next morning was mercifully scattered, too. He remembered telling her that it was over and her taking a swing at him with the knife, and a roaring surge of territorial fury. How dare she attack him in his own home?

Harvey did not have a policy against hitting women. He had a policy against hitting anyone, ever, outside of competitive sports, so his own violence came as a shock to him. He didn't even realize he'd fought back until he was standing in the kitchen, blood slipping through his fingers as he held the wound with one hand and called the police with the other, knuckles bruised from the impact with Lara's jaw, Lara laid out on the kitchen floor.

He didn't remember calling Donna from the hospital, though he did remember with cringing shame the fear of not knowing where he was, of not knowing if those cops had really believed him, of needing someone else's help.

He owed Donna. Well, he owed her for a lot of things, but for that, especially: for not bothering him, for just taking him home and letting him sleep, for cleaning up the blood in the kitchen and leaving when he asked her to.

That night he called the doorman downstairs and was told his elevator code had already been changed and his locks would be changed tomorrow. He gave the man a list of people who were allowed to enter, and only those people, and he should check ID to be sure: Donna, Jessica, Kyle (should that ever be necessary, God forbid, but he _was_ Harvey's associate), his brother, Ray --

"Mike," he added onto the end. "Mike Ross."

"Oh, the Rollo's guy! Sure thing."

But Mike didn't show up. Not for weeks, until Harvey wondered if he'd somehow fucked that up too, or if Mike wasn't working for Rollo's anymore, or if he was sick. He blamed his irrationality on not sleeping; four nights in five he'd wake up certain that Lara was in his kitchen, sometimes several times a night. He'd taken to sleeping on his couch after work some evenings, the last two or three hours of the day, because not even Lara would be able to get past Donna.

The idea that Mike might be sick occurred to him on a night he wasn't even planning on ordering in, in fact had already eaten dinner. But he needed to know, suddenly -- whether he'd creeped Mike out, hiring him to help with the legal work, or what the hell was going on. He missed Mike's consistency, his stability.

"Rollo's, this is Junior, delivery or pickup?" Junior asked when he called.

"Delivery," Harvey said. "Last name Specter."

"Oh, hiya!" she said cheerily. "What'll it be?"

Harvey paused. "Junior, has Mike been sick?"

"Not that I know of, considering he's on shift tonight. Why?"

"Can you send him with my order?"

She laughed. "Don't abuse the poor boy, Mr. Specter."

Harvey was startled into silence for so long that she hesitantly called his name.

A joke, it was a joke.

"Sorry, distracted," he said. "But you can, right? Send Mike?"

"Of course."

"Make sure, please?"

"Okaaaay," she answered, clearly weirded out. "What's he bringing you?"

"Small pepperoni and some ribs? Half-plate."

"Fries?"

"No, thank you."

"We're on it," she said, and hung up.

Mike was visibly nervous when he arrived with the food, but Harvey didn't care; something in him settled at Mike's presence, like normality was returning. He wanted Mike not to be nervous, he wanted Mike to _want_ to be his pizza guy --

"Your girlfriend," Mike finally blurted, when Harvey asked what was wrong.

Oh, God...

"She seemed to think you were sleeping with me so I thought maybe I should back off because she was kind of scary and -- " Mike broke off.

"Blonde?" Harvey asked. "Angry? Really long fingernails?"

Mike nodded.

Harvey wanted to tell him everything, a sharp hard want right under the ribcage, right where Lara had sliced him open. But Mike was working, he had a job to do, so Harvey gave him the barest possible bones of the story and asked him to come over, asked him into his home when Mike was off-shift so that he could explain it correctly.

Mike's reaction to the wound was priceless. It was mostly healed, but it was like the guy couldn't resist; he poked Harvey right in the stab wound and quoted Monty Python at him. Nobody had been anything but pityingly sympathetic (except for Donna, who had spared him pity) and in one fell swoop Mike turned emotional trauma into a cult film joke.

He slept better that night than he had for weeks.


	8. Chapter 8

Harvey was, wholly and completely, weirded out by all of Mike's touching.

He could get that Mike, who seemed like the kind of guy who took in stray kittens in his spare time, might be less inclined to false machismo than the ultra-competitive testosterone junkies Harvey spent most of his day working with. Being something of an ultra-competitive testosterone junkie himself, he wasn't accustomed to men _touching_ him, even after the almost-thing with Keller. But he really wasn't accustomed to the way Mike would just touch him without seeming to mean anything by it.

It was nice. It was nice that when he told Mike about Lara and how he was mostly fine, Mike seemed to believe him. It was nice that Mike touched his hair, pads of his fingers rubbing soothingly against his scalp, and stayed silent and didn't expect anything from him.

It was just so weird.

Harvey thought about this a lot, and decided on an experiment: he decided to deliberately -- with malice aforethought? -- try _caring_ about Mike Ross.

Hell, it wasn't like he had any other emotional complications at the moment. He was in the middle of the longest dry spell he'd had since before Harvard. Self-imposed, true, but still. And Mike wasn't a client; there was nothing to win.

So he asked Mike over for a game sometimes, sometimes to work, and he made a conscious effort to accept Mike's hand on his elbow to get his attention or Mike's leg against his or sometimes Mike falling asleep on his shoulder as something natural, something people who cared about each other did.

It kind of freaked him out for about two weeks, but he got over it.

Scotty came back into his life with near-perfect timing, though of course with Scotty it was less "come back into my life" and more "roar recklessly into my ordered existence". He'd been thinking about dating again (well, 'dating') and wondering if perhaps he shouldn't just jump Mike's bones (scotch would have to be involved on Harvey's end, large quantities of scotch) and suddenly there was Scotty: trusted, familiar, the same old spark between them. God, he'd missed the spark.

"You have the preliminary proposal?" he asked, setting his briefcase on the table in the hotel suite where they were supposed to be working through the merger.

"No, I just flew in from London completely unprepared," she retorted, tossing down a folder.

"Try not to be intimidated, I use some big words," he replied, slamming his own folder down.

"Overcompensation isn't that big of a word," she said, and Harvey honest to God got so turned on.

"I can hardly wait to see the work of a Senior Partner," she continued, starting to circle the table.

"I see my promotion popped up on your Harvey Specter google alert," he said, which wasn't his best line, but frankly was way better than _That's not all that's going to pop up_.

She already had her hands on his shoulders and he was ready when she jumped up a little -- his hands on her ass, her legs around his waist, he could take her weight easily and had before now. They slammed around into a wall as they kissed, and this was fantastic, was going to be great --

Something tightened under his skin, like wire wrapped around his chest, a thin hard line of pain along the scar from Lara's attack. It hit him sharply and he staggered a little, almost dropping Scotty.

"Getting too old for this?" she asked, and Harvey kissed her neck as an excuse to try and find his breath. Every time he inhaled the wire in his skin tightened.

"Watch it, you're my age," he managed, and swung her around into another wall. God, it _hurt_ to breathe. "Can't remember the last time we had a bed. Pretty convenient that we're working on a hotel merger."

Whatever she said in reply was lost in a wash of relief as the wire loosened -- he could still feel it, but it wasn't so bad now, softer, more of a tension than a pain.

It surged back when they tumbled onto the bed; he fought down a cry of pain, confident she'd mistaken it for pleasure, and tugged at her skirt. He was hard and it hurt and he wanted this, wanted it badly --

"Condom?" she asked, wriggling out of her shirt, tugging on his.

"I didn't know you'd be here," he replied, and she groaned and thudded her head against his shoulder.

"My assistant told your assistant," she said. Harvey struggled for air, then sat up. "What?"

"If Donna knew..." he used it as an excuse, and it felt cowardly, but he stood up and walked into the other room, running a finger through the top pocket of his briefcase lid.

Three condoms (Donna had a lot of confidence in him). And a little thing of lube, just in case.

Harvey spared a moment to wonder if his working relationship with Donna wasn't verging on the deeply inappropriate, but the amusement he felt at her forethought had dispersed the pain. He breathed deep, walked back into the bedroom, and held up the condoms.

"Such a boy scout," she said approvingly, and then it was okay, this was okay, getting naked and reminding himself of the curves of her body. He kept waiting for the tightness again, for the pain, and it made him perhaps a little slower than he'd like, but then again Scotty didn't seem to mind. He could feel the licks of pleasure in his spine, the way his whole body seemed strung tense, and then a wash of intense pleasure, a deep, heartfelt groan of relief as he came.

When he could think again, he found Scotty propped on an elbow over him, face concerned, fingers spread on his chest.

"What's this?" she asked, tracing the line of the scar. Harvey slung an arm over his eyes.

"Kitchen accident," he said.

"Harvey."

"Seriously, you should see me with a grapefruit knife, I'm a menace," he replied, but his voice cracked (holy what, his voice cracked?) on the last word.

Scotty just kept tracing it, gently.

"Harvey," she prompted again. He took a breath, let his arm fall, and looked up at her.

"Look, do you want me to give you head or not?" he asked.

"Well, if you're going to be like _that_ about it," she replied, and settled back into the pillows.

Harvey grinned and set to work.

She let it go for a while, at least -- after he'd made her come twice, after they'd put their clothes back on and done some actual work, and all through the negotiations. It wasn't until they were done (or so he thought) and making out on his couch for the traditional post-procedural fuck that he felt her fingers digging into it again.

"Seriously, let it go," he said into her mouth.

"Come on, I'm sure it was very macho, motocross or fencing or something. Wait, was it embarrassing?" she sat back, looking down at him, and something must have shown in his face. "Jesus, Harvey, what happened?"

"It's from the last woman I slept with before you," he said. Her fingers slid away from his chest.

"What?"

"Aw, Christ..." he pushed her off and stood up, walking into the kitchen, looking for his phone. "You want the story, I want some food."

He called Rollo's and ordered in a calm, rational voice. He put the phone down and turned to find Scotty standing just past the kitchen island, watching him with careful eyes. He poured them each a glass of scotch and stood there in the dark kitchen, about three feet from where it had happened, and told her about it.

Scotty listened to the story, which by now between the cops and Donna and Jessica (hadn't THAT been a fun conversation) and Mike, he was pretty good at recounting.

"So it's over, can we please go back to making out?" he asked. She gave him a thoughtful frown.

Mike really did have exquisite timing. He knocked before she could answer, and Harvey went to pay him. Scotty didn't bother moving. Harvey saw Mike's eyes sweep her, head to foot.

" _Do, or do not. There is no try,_ " Mike whispered in his ear, and really, Star Wars quotes were not supposed to get him hard. He carefully closed the door and turned around.

"Food?" he asked. Scotty shook her head and kissed him.

"Come to bed," she said.


	9. Chapter 9

This 'caring' thing was officially bullshit.

Harvey was surprised to find he felt distant from Scotty's betrayal -- well, betrayal was a pretty dramatic way to put it. Her attempt at an end-run, perhaps. It should have hurt more, that she'd slept with him and then tried to trick him and then, when that hadn't worked, told him she was getting married (after having, the point was, slept with him). But it just didn't matter as much as it once would have. Scotty was fun, she was sexy, and he had, before now, trusted her. The loss of trust should have cut, but Harvey and Scotty had been growing apart for a long time, their little ritual the only thing really still connecting them.

Thinking about Scotty led him into thinking about Mike, and about how there was this person, this person who was irrevocably in Harvey's life, and how Harvey wanted more for Mike than the relatively dead-end job and the constant worry he saw even when Mike was relaxed. Mike had an astounding mind; he should be getting his degree, going on to be amazing at something, anything he wanted, though of course if Harvey were asked he would gently recommend the law.

He didn't understand, at first, why Mike had rejected his suggestion of consulting work so strongly. Sure, it was risky, but not that risky, and less risky than being a bicycle-riding pizza delivery man who was betting on never getting hit by a car and being out of work. He hadn't offered Mike money, he knew better than that, but he didn't see why he'd reject a leg up if it meant he could earn his own way.

He went over the conversation in his mind, trying to pick at the point where he'd fucked it up, where he'd made Mike so angry the other man had left -- they'd bickered before and had arguments about movies and such, but this felt much deeper. And when Mike had told Harvey not to close him, it stung.

So, caring: officially bullshit. But kind of hard to turn off.

Harvey read people. It was what he did. Being unable to get a read on what he'd done to Mike was unsettling. Especially when Mike stayed angry for _days_ : ignored or barely responded to his texts, asked for some space, didn't call. Harvey considered forcing the issue -- say, ordering a pizza -- but then the issue was forced for him.

"My grandmother's sick," Mike said over the phone to him that day, and Harvey felt his fingers tighten around the pen he was holding. Mike sounded like his heart was breaking.

He knew he wasn't being rational about this, and if Mike had been his client he'd have scolded anyone who acted the way he was acting. He should cool down, treat Mike like he would a client, because that was best _for Mike_.

But he couldn't help it. Mike wasn't a client, Mike was...something else, something dangerous to label, so Harvey told him to come to the firm, poured him a drink, sat down with him and tried to calm him down. That, at least, he was good at.

He couldn't blow off his eleven o'clock, though, and he had to leave Mike there. He was meeting with Bart Agnew, a counterpart working for Sloane, Blake, and Sloane, and they were in the final terrible throes of a buyout deal between Harvey's client and Bart's. The paperwork had to be finished before noon.

"Tick tock, Harvey," Bart sang out, when Harvey arrived five minutes late. They'd known each other since Harvard, and were friendlier than most; Bart was a third-year in Harvey's first, and had no personal stake in Harvey's success or failure. "Man, you're a mess, what happened?"

"Personal business," Harvey said. "Paperwork?"

"You want to review it?" Bart held up a folder. Harvey opened it and started skimming, passing his own across back to Bart. "Looks like we're mostly in agreement. Clause five?"

"Shouldn't be a problem," Harvey muttered, not really paying attention -- he knew clause five and his clients were prepared to give up honorary titles for real cold hard cash. There was a long silence, and Harvey looked up.

"Seriously, what's going on?" Bart asked.

"It's not important."

"Harvey, it obviously is. If you're not in the game, let's regroup. I don't want this deal fucked up because you're having life problems."

Harvey looked up, closing the file. Bart tilted his head.

"Okay. There's this kid who has no JD, no license, and no Bar. He's the best lawyer I've come across in years."

Bart raised an eyebrow.

"He's been doing consulting work freelance for Pearson Hardman, and if you tell anyone I said that I will rip your arm off and beat you with it."

"Hey, no need to fuss," Bart held up his hands. "I've heard so much worse, you can't imagine. So the great Harvey Specter needs help, huh?"

"He's better than my second-year associate."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. You know what he does for a living?"

"I can't imagine."

"Delivers pizza."

"What's wrong with him?"

"I've been wondering that myself. He needs money. I offered him a contract as a consultant to bring him on full-time. He turned it down."

"How much did you offer him?"

Harvey paused.

He hadn't actually mentioned money at all. There was a time and place for that. He hadn't really explained to Mike the kind of money consultants made, and he'd have no way of knowing on his own.

Jesus. That was the problem. That was it -- Mike didn't understand the offer. It wasn't that he didn't want it. He didn't even comprehend it.

"Because if this kid is seriously that good, I'd like to meet him. SB&S has some openings," Bart added. "You think he'd work for us instead?"

"SB&S uses contractors?"

"Sure. We can't all be tony Harvard-only snobs," Bart grinned. "Why?"

"Would you be able to draw up a contract? We don't have anything standard here."

"I can give you the points," Bart said, taking out his phone. "Email?"

"Send them to our paralegal," Harvey said, and reeled off Rachel's email address even as he was emailing her himself to explain who Bart was. "I'll ask her to write it up."

"And for God's sake, Harvey, make the kid a cash offer," Bart added. He typed for a few more seconds, then set his phone down. "Now, can we do this paperwork or what?"

They got through the deal with only minor hassles and Bart collected up both folders, asking if he could use Pearson Hardman's fax. Harvey walked him down to the copy room, then collected Rachel and swung past Accounting. Rachel watched, wide eyed, as Harvey had fifty grand written out to Mike Ross from his discretionary fund.

"I want you to walk him through everything," Harvey said, as they hurried back to his office. "Make sure he signs. Don't pressure him, but don't let him walk out. I'll prep him for you."

"Why can't you do this?" she asked. "I mean I'm happy to, but if you're that worried about closing him..."

"I'm not the best person to do this," he said. "Give me five minutes with the kid and I'll send him out."

The relief that washed through him when Mike accepted the contract was almost dizzying. It was only one step on a road that was bound to be fraught with issues, but it was a step, and a little of the tense worry drained from Mike's face when he finally understood what the check was: not a loan, not a gift, but a down payment.

He expected that when he sent Mike off he'd bolt nervously for Rachel. Instead, the book he'd given Mike bumped his ribs painfully as Mike hugged him. He hissed a little, but awkwardly put his arms around Mike's shoulders (conscious Donna and Rachel were probably laughing at him) and then gently disengaged.

"You'd better watch it," Donna said, once Mike and Rachel had gone. "You're turning into a softie, Harvey, letting people hug you like that."

"Do you really want me using you to prove I'm not?" he asked.

"Touche," she replied. "Try it and you'll be lucky if you can find your ass with both hands by this time next month."

"Love you, Donna," he called.

"Sexual harassment!" she called back.


	10. Chapter 10

There is a picture in Harvey's mind that formed the day Mike told him about Trevor. It will always be the same, he suspects, and even when Trevor is a distant event in Mike's past he knows Mike will remember with clarity. So Harvey holds the memory as well, because Trevor was a part of Mike, and his death is a part of Mike. He and Mike -- at least he hopes, he believes -- will grow old together, and with Mike back from Harvard now he has assurance of that. So Harvey needs to remember that there was a time Harvey wasn't there, and Trevor was.

His image is certainly not Mike's version of Trevor. Harvey doesn't know the good parts, if there were any, of the dead boy.

In Harvey's mind he's a cruel-faced young man, dressed better than Mike, a fast-talker depending on his friend for any serious thinking he needs done. Someone constantly on his cellphone, constantly disappearing and reappearing, no steadiness, no reliability. Someone who used Mike and abandoned him. A bloody body on a table that Mike had to identify, a boy who left behind a girlfriend Mike had to grieve with.

Harvey knows better than anyone there are no shortcuts in life; the best one can expect is guides along the way, like Jessica was for him, like he has tried to be for Mike. Trevor was not a guide. Trevor was an object lesson. Even Mike wouldn't deny that -- he might be hurt, might protest he wasn't only a lesson, but Mike knows he was a lesson all the same.

He sat that night, the night Mike told him about this boy, and held Mike's head against his shoulder, knowing that for Mike touch was equal to comfort, words didn't need to be said. This was okay, it was what people did when they cared about each other. It was easier than words.

There was no broken part of Mike's life that Harvey didn't want to fix. Back then, he thought about what it would be like to have all of him, to be the most important person to Mike, but those were fantasies. They weren't something that would happen. The best he would manage was to be a decent friend, which was struggle enough sometimes.

Now he looks at Mike, over breakfast or when they're working together or in bed, looks at his youthful face, maybe the tie he's wearing, the ring on his finger to match the one on Harvey's (such an insecure gesture, but Mike sees the best in everyone and just thought it was sweet). He watches Mike fulfill the potential his genius promised, and he revels in it.

And he thinks what a fool Trevor must have been.


	11. Chapter 11

Harvey was an athlete in school, and he still worked out, ate mostly right (Rollo's excepting). The long stretch of skin from pectoral to hip was a thick slab of muscle, if maybe not quite as well defined as it used to be.

But there was a slight curve to it, just the way he was designed, not the ideal body-shape for men's suits -- then again, as Rene always said, who was? Harvey didn't bother worrying about it, not the way some of his colleagues worried about their looks, their _shapes_. What was the point? If you were doing things right, nobody was looking at whether you had a nice ass (though he did).

The first time Rene suggested waistcoats and vests to him, as a signifier of his increasing status when he was a junior partner, Harvey had considered the idea. It was one more layer to wear every morning, but it had a certain class to it.

"Sure," he'd said. "Let's try it."

Once Rene had fitted one to him properly, taken all the new measurements, he studied the result. The vest emphasized the muscle slightly, not trimming him down as he'd expected Rene was trying to do. The back outlined a sharp curve, highly flattering.

He flashed on antique engravings of bankers, doctors, lawyers, and the way the suit had done the same for them, given them an appearance of success, of opulence. He thought he looked like a grownup. Fucking finally.

Rene hovered, uncertain.

"Yeah," Harvey had said. He looked at Rene in the mirror. "You know my colors. Do me up some. Let's roll with this from here."

Rene smiled. "If I can say, Harvey, it's a pleasure to dress a man who's so comfortable in his body."

"Well, I wouldn't want to deprive you," Harvey had grinned, as Rene discreetly took the AmEx he held up.

Watching Mike, the afternoon he took him to get fitted for his suits, Harvey felt a pleasant sense of nostalgia, of continuity. Mike was comfortable in his body simply because nobody had ever taught him not to be. The idea of being physically unacceptable seemed never to have occurred to him. His confusion over the suits came from ignorance, not fear.

At one point, while Veronica was taking some fairly detailed measurements, Rene leaned against the bar where Harvey was sitting and poured himself a very small measure of red wine.

"He's a good one, this one," he said to Harvey. "Moldable."

"That was my thought."

"Not too pliant, though. In life, I suspect, as in fashion."

"Still working on that," Harvey said.

"He honestly doesn't own a single suit? Aside from the staple job, which you _will_ answer for. Honestly, taking staples to one of my suits," Rene scolded.

"It was an old suit, and he needed it more than I did. And no, he doesn't own any yet," Harvey said, thinking of what Mike had told him: _I only own one suit, and it's a funeral suit._

"Is he to be the associate noveau?" Rene inquired.

"Not quite. But I expect to hold onto him for at least a few years."

Rene gave him a sidelong look. "Yes. I would, were I you."

"Hey, do me a favor?"

"Of course."

"Kid's had a rough few years. Knock twenty percent off the price. Tell him it's a new client discount if he asks, and toss the twenty percent on my AmEx."

"Keeping secrets, Harvey!" Rene teased. "Don't worry. He's a sharp one, and I trust he'll be repeat business?"

"I hope so."

"Shall I put him in cufflinks? A little gift?"

Harvey shot him a sidelong look.

"I would never presume, but it _is_ so nice to have something pretty to look at, no matter how useful he is."

"If you can convince him, be my guest."


	12. Chapter 12

The fact that everyone seemed to think Harvey and Mike were sleeping together didn't bother Harvey, except of course that he wasn't actually getting any sex out of it.

He wasn't even bothered by Louis's assumption that Mike was his paid escort, because Louis usually assumed the worst and this particular accusation said more about Louis than it did about Harvey.

But he was bothered by the fact that Jessica had made the same assumption, based on Louis's. He knew Jessica thought he was stubborn and sometimes reckless, but really, bringing a rent boy to the office in the middle of the day? He'd never before thought Jessica might think he was _stupid_. True, literature and history was full of men who'd thrown away careers and families and sanity for sexual obsession, but Harvey believed in learning from the mistakes of others.

So before he left for Rene's to meet Mike, he had Donna ask Joseph to find out if Jessica would care to have drinks with him that evening. It was either petty or wisely cautious to go through the whole my-assistant-told-your-assistant thing, but either way he didn't think Jessica would appreciate, today of all days, Harvey simply knocking on her door at six and mouthing, "Drinks?"

And Donna talked to Joseph who talked to Jessica who agreed to drinks at seven. Harvey anticipated he would be paying.

"I'm interested," Jessica said, as she slid into a chair opposite him in a very prime window table at their bar. "Are you sulking, preparing to sulk, or trying to make amends?"

Harvey sat back, giving her his patented head-tip-and-grin, which always amused her, he knew, because she'd taught it to him. "I'm...opening a channel of communication."

"Regarding something in specific?"

"Reopening, perhaps," he allowed. "Maybe we aren't talking enough. It concerns me you actually thought I was capable of dragging a prostitute into my office in the middle of the day. I mean, I won't get into why you thought I had to pay for sex, especially out of executive funds, but I'm pretty sure your opinion of me -- "

" -- is not quite as high as yours is of you," she interrupted. "What was I supposed to think, when Louis gave me those check reciepts? Either you were paying a witness, or..."

"You didn't think the fact it was Louis should have tipped you off?"

She gave him that look, the look he hated, which said he hadn't personally wearied her, but she was weary of people all the same.

"Harvey, I've seen men I respected, men I believed to be of strong personal integrity, do all kinds of stupid things in the name of sex. I've learned not to defend anyone until they've defended themselves to me first, in things like this."

"I've never given you any reason to think I'd pull this kind of bullshit, and you know it."

"You've danced a pretty fine line a few times," she replied. "And you're not as subtle as you think you are."

Harvey raised his eyebrows.

"I don't pry into your personal life, because I don't care, but for all the women you take home, Harvey, all the rumored sexual prowess of Mr. Specter, I see the way you look at men sometimes."

A cold knot formed in his stomach.

"I see the way you watch Erlington and his partner at functions, like you're trying to solve a puzzle. But I don't see you making passes at men, so..." she spread one hand, expressively. "I don't think it's out of the question for someone who sees these things to think you might prefer the discretion money can induce. And men who have no outlet, when they find one, can become a little extreme."

"You're wrong," he said.

"Not in the general. As for the particular, I repeat: _I don't care_. Clearly Ross is a legitimate asset to the firm -- at least, he'd better be, or it's your butt on the line -- so the point is moot. If you're looking for an apology, look elsewhere. I'm not going to smooth your feathers just because you weren't smart enough to cover your ass in time."

Harvey considered her.

"Let's just get this out of the way," he said, leaning forward. "I would not pay a witness, ever. I do not pay for sex, mainly because it's illegal, partly because I don't need to. I owe you many things, among them the duty not to disgrace the firm, and I take that seriously -- "

"And yet today, because you weren't seeing all the angles, you nearly did," she interrupted again.

"I'm sorry if my mind doesn't immediately jump to prostitution when I see someone writing a check," Harvey retorted. "Maybe you should ask Louis why his did."

"Are you accusing Louis of sexual misconduct?" she asked sharply.

"I'm sorry, have you met Louis Litt?"

"Louis is a respected junior partner in this firm -- "

"And he tried to convince you -- successfully, for the most part -- that I was fucking a whore in the office," Harvey snarled.

Jessica's cold stare forced him back a little in his seat.

"I get that you found a little show dog and you're very proud of him," she said quietly. "I get that for whatever reason you're trying to help him out. I commend you for managing to form an emotional bond with another human being, because God knows you're bad at that. But you should think carefully about whether he's worth what you're about to do to our professional and personal relationship."

"This _show dog_ lives in a crummy walkup studio and works two jobs to support his sick grandmother, and in his rare off-time he has done nothing but outstanding work for the firm. He didn't deserve that humiliation."

"You brought him into the room."

"I was bringing you an asset! But you just plowed right over -- "

"I am your _Managing Partner_ and if I want you to sit down and shut up you will," she answered sharply.

Harvey sat back, rubbing his face. "I don't want to do this with you."

"So don't," she answered. "Let it go. Harvey. Ross will get a fair shake from here out. I promise you that. If he does good work he'll be rewarded like any employee of the firm. If Louis's accusations start circulating, I'll make sure they're put down. That's all I'm going to offer you, and I suggest you man up, stop whining, and take it."

"It won't," Harvey said.

"What won't?"

"What Louis said. It won't go beyond where it is now. Donna made sure of it," he added, thinking of that afternoon, when Donna had re-enacted the whole scene for him, including doing her Louis voice, which was admittedly pretty entertaining and had definitely taken the edge off his anger.

Jessica stared at him for about ten seconds and then broke down laughing. She rested her forehead against her wrists, shaking her head slightly.

"The pair of you," she said finally, sighing. "There are days I just want to shake you till your teeth rattle, Harvey."

"I have to protect mine," Harvey said. Jessica sat back.

"Ross will belong to the firm, not to you."

"I brought him in. He's still mine."

She looked up at him and leaned back, nodding. "Like you're mine."

"Yes." (Not exactly; Jessica, if she had ever wanted to pin him down and fuck him stupid, had never shown any evidence of it. Close enough, though.)

"Okay," she said. "Are we done with this? Because I'd like to suggest we should have another drink and discuss something a little less fraught."

Harvey let it go, made the effort, ignored what she'd said and decided not to hold a grudge about the show dog remark. But while they talked most of his mind was back with Mike in the apartment he'd seen that afternoon for the first time: neat but not sterile, full of books and weird posters, utterly lived-in, dishes in the sink, an expert patch-job on the couch. It had felt homelike, in a way he'd never felt outside his own home, and at the same time reminded him of the instability of Mike's existence, the fragile balance Harvey wanted to strengthen.

Mike would be giving Junior his one-week notice right about now, if he didn't chicken out; in a week he'd be taking the Bar, and after that he'd start at Pearson Hardman, where he was going to blow Jessica's expectations of mediocrity right out of the water.

Harvey left the bar as soon as he could without implying he was still angry, went home, and put on some music. He settled into the couch to try and sort out his mind. Jessica hadn't been entirely wrong: he needed to see things clearly.

Around one in the morning, he picked up his phone and texted Mike. _How'd it go?_

 _You're a pushy dickhead sometimes. It went fine,_ Mike answered. Harvey grinned in the dark.

 _I'm a pushy dickhead all the time. Glad to hear. Good luck on the Bar._


	13. Chapter 13

The week that followed felt like the time just after exams, or maybe the wait while a jury deliberated. There was a sense of suspended motion, even as Harvey worked on cases, cajoled clients, played politics and went about his business as usual.

He didn't want to distract Mike, so he left him alone.

Kyle, in the abstract, had no such qualms.

"But I'm still his associate, right?" he heard Kyle asking Donna one evening, as Donna was packing to leave. It was the day before Mike would sit the Bar; he'd run out for a cup of coffee and clear his head, and Kyle obviously hadn't noticed his return yet. Harvey stood about eight feet behind him and listened. "I mean, I'm not being _replaced._ "

"If you do your job, there's no reason to replace you," Donna replied almost absently, and then looked up at him with a bitingly fake smile. "Sweetie."

"So why's he coming in? Can he do the paperwork crap? You think Harvey might let me go to court with him now?"

"I suspect calling it 'paperwork crap' is not going to give you job security any time soon," Donna said.

"But it's boring, and when I'm a partner -- "

"Bite your tongue!"

" -- I won't have to do it anyway."

"Yeah," Donna agreed. "Unless you get saddled with an inept associate."

Harvey was going to remember that and later, when Kyle was gone, he was going to give her one of the special _I adore you in a totally respectful, would never presume on you way_ smiles he saved just for her.

"Who is he even? Like where did Harvey randomly find this guy?"

"Why don't you ask Harvey?" Donna asked, and Harvey tucked his hands in his pockets, glaring at Kyle as he turned around. Kyle, veteran soldier of many a fake legal battlefield, champion of mock trial since time immemorial, gaped like a fish.

"Go," Harvey said, and Kyle scuttled away.

"I love it when you get all forceful," Donna sighed, mock-dreamy.

"Kid's a menace," Harvey answered. "Homeward?"

"Movies with this week's boy."

"Be kind; it's the duty of gods to mortals," Harvey informed her.

"Anything you need?" she asked, shouldering her bag.

"No. I'm going to wrap some research and head out."

She gave him a knowing look. "Pizza Guy's taking the leap tomorrow."

"My _consultant_ will be fine," Harvey assured her.

"Wow, you could be the poster child for _say it like you believe it_ ," she told him, and departed, heels clicking elegantly down the hall. Harvey watched her go, then flicked the lights on in his office and settled into his chair thoughtfully.

The night before he took the Bar he'd been strung so tight he could hardly breathe. It hadn't done him any favors in the exam. He doubted Mike, who hadn't spent three years circling other baby sharks in law school and could recite complex, obscure law from memory, was nervous. He was probably having a beer, and would sleep fine tonight.

Still. There was always that moment of panic, or had been for Harvey, when he opened a test booklet; Mike couldn't possibly be immune.

Harvey opened his laptop and began looking for his PHOTOS-HARVARD folder.

Law students weren't really expected at football games at Harvard; they were supposed to be busy studying or figuring out ways to poison those above them in the academic rank. Harvey had gone mainly to loosen himself up before mock trial one year. And, being Harvey Specter, if he was going to a football game he was going to do it _right_.

He'd attached himself to a group of boisterous undergrads who didn't know who he was but, after chatting for a few minutes, didn't care; they'd already had a few by the time they got to the stadium, and were perfectly happy to have this good-looking solitary grad student accompanying them and buying beers. One of the boys -- cute himself, with a hot blonde girlfriend -- had broken out the greasepaint and carefully, skillfully drawn a large crimson H on his face, cool and wet and exciting, somehow taboo for who Harvey was and where he meant to go.

The hot blonde had snapped a photograph with her Polaroid (even then, a dying breed) and given it to him as a souvenir.

It jolted around with him for ages, from his room in a communal rented condo in Cambridge to his tiny Manhattan studio apartment in his first year at the DA's office to his slightly less incredibly-roach-infested studio in his second year. Donna had found it when she was helping him unpack in his condo and mocked him mercilessly before scanning it into her computer and making it her desktop wallpaper for weeks.

Very few people recognized him, though. His hair had been lighter, face a little rounder, much more boyish. And anyway who would expect Harvey of all people to go in greasepaint to a football game?

He had a copy of it here somewhere...

When he found it he emailed it to himself, then opened the email on his phone and downloaded it, pasting it into a text message to Mike.

 _Even you can't be totally calm about the Bar_ , he typed. _So when you freak out, remember this and laugh._

He got no response, but then he wasn't really expecting one. It was enough, he found, to have sent it.

Which was kind of pathetic, part of him said, but he ignored that part.


	14. Chapter 14

Cars and baseball were two of Harvey's loves, and they were essentially the same.

Each started with numbers, clear and cool and precise: RBI and RPM, batting average and zero-to-sixty, pitch speed and horsepower.

But from there they unfolded into complexity. Baseball was a thinking man's sport, a psychological one, a matter of strategy and finesse, of bluff. A car was only as good as its driver, and each engine was a different work of art. These things required subtlety, a gentle touch, intelligence and passion. They conveyed status, but status was merely a bonus.

There was a reason the clients Harvey had brought into Pearson Hardman over the years trended towards athletes and car companies.

A lot of guys wouldn't go for an electric car, but it wasn't about visible muscle for Harvey. The Tesla Roadster 2.5 was new and fascinating and sexy, and Harvey had lusted after it quietly since the car club acquired one. The waiting list was long, and manipulated by seniority, but Harvey was a patient man.

The fact that Donna could get him an afternoon with the Tesla was annoying, because it meant she could have done it months ago. On the other hand, the fact that she'd gotten it for him today, of all days, made him want to buy her expensive things.

The fact that Mike _fell asleep_ in the Tesla after Harvey showed up as the coolest post-Bar-Exam ride ever...

Well, he'd intended to take him for a hell of a ride, feed him a good dinner, and deliver him home. But there was something to be said for zipping through the streets of Manhattan, turning heads whenever they passed, Harvey in total control of a hundred-thousand-dollar car and Mike sleeping peacefully in the soft leather passenger's seat.

He'd looked so tired, and he'd been so happy to see him.

On the other hand, _Tesla Roadster_. So Harvey might have taken the long route around to Rollo's after calling in an order; what was fifteen or twenty extra minutes with a car like this when Mike was asleep anyway?

He knew, in theory, where Rollo's was. He'd never actually been there, but the GPS in the Tesla knew how to get there. Mike would probably freak out if he saw Harvey playing with the GPS while driving, but Harvey could multitask. He pulled the Tesla past Rollo's, which was all elderly red brick and green awning, and circled around to the alley in the back. Mike stirred and mumbled something briefly when they stopped, but as far as Harvey could tell he didn't wake. The kitchen door was propped open with a brick, and from inside he could hear voices calling out orders, one answering a phone.

He knocked gently on the half-open door, and a slim, thirtysomething woman in jeans turned around.

"Yeah?" she barked, clearly annoyed someone was at her kitchen door.

"Picking up for H. Specter," Harvey said.

The woman's face transformed, though her annoyance had mostly bled into wariness.

"So you're Mr. Specter," she said, crossing her arms. She looked him up and down. "You're shorter than I thought you'd be."

"Well, I look taller in heels," he replied. There was a pause, then a twitch of a smile and a laugh. "You must be Junior," he added, offering his hand. Rather than shake it, she put a bag of food into it.

"Got your order here," she said. Harvey peered into the bag. "Going to be picking up now that your number one delivery boy quit?"

"Just this once. Mike's in the car," he said, jerking his thumb at the Tesla. She frowned, and then gave him a glare to match Donna's at her angriest. "And you can drop the thousand yard stare, I'm taking him home and feeding him. _His_ home."

Her frown did not lessen. Harvey began to worry about the integrity of any future pizza he might order.

"If you're toying with him -- "

"I'm not," he interrupted, before she could make a threat, or possibly explain what she meant by 'toying'.

"Mike is special to us. To me," she replied. "He's part of our family."

He took a breath. _Woo the client and close the deal, Harvey._ Junior would appreciate honesty, and she didn't really care who Harvey was or what he did. She cared about Mike. Mike was the key.

"Look, I appreciate that you took him in and helped him out," he said. "I do. But I can give him a shot at the big time, and with all due respect...you can't."

She opened her mouth, but he held up a hand.

"So let me give the kid a hot meal and take it from here. I'm not the big bad wolf," he added, with an earnest look. Well, the closest he could come, he was out of practice.

"You're not his big brother, either," Junior pointed out, more quietly now.

Harvey found himself laughing, ruefully, embarrassed for no reason he could understand.

"No," he agreed. "But that doesn't mean he's not important to me, too."

She gave him a final look and nodded, slowly.

"There's some extra dipping sauce in the top, so don't let the bag tip over," she said.

"Yes, ma'am," Harvey replied. The Tesla wasn't really designed to hold much in the way of cargo, but Harvey wedged the bag behind his seat carefully and pulled away. Junior watched them the whole way out onto the street.

Mike was sleepy and quiet as they ate, sitting in his rickety chairs at his little dining table, eating with mismatched forks and knives because, if Mike had an actual _set_ of silverware, Harvey hadn't been able to find it in his brief tour of Mike's kitchenette. When Mike's ravioli kept missing his mouth, Harvey decided he'd probably eaten enough, and ordered him to sleep.

He was going to leave -- the Tesla had probably already been stripped for parts or something -- but he heard Mike sigh softly as he flopped on the bed, and noticed his shoes were still on.

Well, if the Tesla had been stripped, another few minutes wouldn't matter.

He went back to the bed, tugged Mike's shoes off, considered and then discarded actually undressing him, and picked up his phone, programming an early alarm. He set the phone down again and switched off the light over the bed, leaning back against the wall for a moment of contemplation.

Mike was like cars and baseball too, he thought. Broken down to the essentials, Mike had a precise, clean mind. But it was twisted up in all this complicated emotion: pride, idealism, fear of failure, a need to be sure that he earned what he got. Harvey could see underneath that a desperate urge to please, to be told he had worth. It was dangerous, that kind of need. If the wrong kind of person saw them, Mike's vulnerabilities could be destructive. He would need careful handling. Intelligence. Subtlety.

Tomorrow he would start work at Pearson Hardman, and both their reputations would be put to the test. Well, Harvey did always like a challenge.

He left quietly. Outside the Tesla was still and gratifyingly intact. He had an hour left before he had to get it back to the club, and the night was young.


	15. Chapter 15

Wrapping the Stable Shelters case was satisfying, not just because they'd won but because it had been Mike's first case, a stressful case, and Harvey was now sure this was going to _work_. Mike had worked hard, juggling Harvey's demands and Louis's, and he'd managed to drag Kyle into it in surprisingly helpful ways.

As a trial by fire it was effective, and Harvey couldn't help but be pleased. His confidence was rewarded and his taste in lawyers unimpeachable. After closing on Lucille he would pick up some ribs, go home, and watch the new James Bond with Mike, which was a just reward for his brilliance.

Harvey had a reasonable tolerance for alcohol, built up over years spent sipping scotch with clients and wine at very long dinners. But Jessica had pressed a chocolatini on him, which was just cruel, and then Lucille had started buying him shots. He wasn't used to the...direct nature of them, and Lucille probably knew that even as she bought him an unholy number. He wasn't sure what her goal was, whether she genuinely just wanted to celebrate or had some unknowable ulterior motive, but he was grateful to Donna for sticking with him and doubly grateful when she told him to go home.

"Do me a favor, for my peace of mind?" she asked earnestly, and Harvey leaned in a little so he could hear her clearly over the bar noise. "Skip the ribs. You're a little drunk, Harvey."

"Just a little," he replied. "It's not my fault."

"Mike will be fine if you don't bring ribs. Get yourself home. I'll make your excuses to Lucille."

Harvey felt a swell of affection for Donna that probably had more to do with the shots than with any particular kindness she was showing him. He kissed her cheek in thanks, and she gave him a gentle but meaningful shove.

"I'm telling my boyfriend you took liberties with me," she said.

He answered before he thought about it. His mind was already on home, on the soft comfort of his couch and a movie with Mike, on the fifty percent chance that Mike would fall asleep curled up against him.

"I'm telling mine you told me not to get ribs," he said.

He'd said worse things in court, made bigger faux pas than that at client dinners, and Donna didn't seem to notice. She shoved him again, got him moving towards the door, and Harvey went with a buried sense of relief, a less subconscious sense of regret.

The air outside was chilly, but not especially sobering; when he got home he was still unsure just how drunk he was. At that point he didn't really care. He was home, and Mike was tucked into the couch like he owned it, with a big smile for him when he came in.

"I know I'm late," he said, by way of apology.

"Are you drunk?" Mike called back, sounding curious rather than censorious.

"Very probably. Lucille bought me several shots."

"There goes the endowment," Mike said from the other room, and Harvey laughed as he changed out of his suit, which smelled like bar funk and sweat from the day. When he wandered back out, in sleep pants and a shirt that felt blissfully cool against his skin, Mike made room for him on the other end of the couch and told him about his evening: snacks with his grandmother, hearing the news about their would-be witness Perkins waking up from his coma (Harvey'd had a text from Kyle to the same effect), hanging out at Harvey's until he arrived.

Home was safe, and Mike was safe, and Harvey let himself relax into the grip of the buzz, topping it with a scotch to wash the harsh bar whiskey out of his mouth.

Mike clearly wanted to decompress, and Harvey couldn't really blame him, so he let him talk. It took him a little while to follow Mike's drift, when he began to question Harvey about why he was still working for Pearson Hardman, about whether he'd proved his worth.

At first it seemed absurd, Mike wondering if Harvey had really hired him for his skill, because he was so obviously a talented man. But talent, of course, did not equal acceptance, and Harvey remembered a few hard weeks when he'd joined the DA's office, before he'd found his footing. They'd called him Harvard Harvey, which hadn't hurt so much as annoyed, as if Harvard was a source of shame instead of pride.

And it raised the question in him, a question he'd been turning over unconsciously for a long time, something he'd never really put into words. How had Mike learned not to expect more, to demand more from life? How had he been so indoctrinated to think he didn't deserve the advantages that should come to someone like him?

Motherfucking _Trevor._ He knew it, and Mike knew it, and Mike was so unhappy with the sullied name of his dead friend.

He was drunk enough, and _worried_ enough (such an unpleasant sensation, this was why Harvey tried not to care about people), that he took the opportunity to reassure Mike silently, when it came.

He'd gotten up to put the movie on, and while Mike was leaning forward from the arm of the couch Harvey just slid in behind him, pushed Mike over enough to set him off balance, and then tugged him back. He pulled Mike's body into his, wrapped an arm around his chest, and held him there.

Confidence was everything, in this as in life.

Mike didn't pull away, just settled down a little and rested his head back against Harvey's shoulder. He was warm, but Harvey could feel the jut of a shoulderblade, the bump of his vertebra at the nape of his neck. A fragile body, something that was his to care for -- if not by right, then by volition.

It took him a while, but he figured out how to say it, comforted by their settled stillness.

"You are where you belong," he said, soft enough that if Mike was sleeping (his breathing was even, rhythmic, relaxed) he wouldn't hear at all.

Even if he did, it didn't matter. If he felt this thing, this unnamed attraction like Harvey did, he'd understand the double meaning. If he didn't, he'd hear what he clearly desperately wanted to: that he was doing a good job, was valued by the firm, by Harvey. It was a good way to test the waters, perhaps.

But Mike just nodded.

Which left Harvey squarely nowhere.


	16. Chapter 16

You know what? Fuck Kyle Durant right in his beady-eyed little face.

Kyle had procured, possibly invented, a pro bono case from somewhere, the first two weeks of Mike's contract at the firm. Harvey wouldn't put it past him to have gone looking for one in this case, though he knew it was irrational to ascribe malicious motives to Kyle's actions. Kyle could absolutely be the most malicious little asshole when he wanted something, but he wasn't that driven or devious (not yet).

Mike had pushed his way into the case after they wrapped Stable Shelters, eager to participate on Kyle's level and make friends with some of the associates. _Mistake_ , Harvey's instincts said, but it was true Mike would at least need to know some of the little peons' names so he could pile work on them if he wanted.

It was a wrongful-firing suit, though the client didn't have much of a leg to stand on. She'd been accused, with reasonable proof, of stealing proprietary company documents. Kyle was all for a dirty court battle where he could strut around and pull some amazing win out of nowhere, despite Harvey's brief and impatient advice to offer a settlement instead.

Mike, falling somewhere between them, was convinced their client had other documents that implicated the company in illegal activities. The fact that she'd been robbed twice (nothing of value taken either time) since being fired seemed to bear that out. But if she had them, the company hadn't found them and she wasn't giving them up, too scared or too worried about prosecution for theft.

Which caused a difficulty because, as Harvey had pointed out, they couldn't get her protection as a whistleblower if she didn't, as it were, blow the god damned whistle.

And he was starting to get really pissed off about this case, because Mike was being strange around Kyle. He kept asking him out for beers and treating him like a friend and being all patient and kind to him, and Harvey was beginning to wonder if he'd missed his shot with Mike and lost out to his little prick of an associate.

He'd gone looking for Mike, but he wasn't at his desk in the little alcove near the bullpen, far enough from the associates to satisfy Harvey but not so far that he'd forget his position was still somewhere far below the Partners. He wasn't in Rachel's office, where Mike sometimes strayed, or in the breakroom eating his terrible rehydrated noodles.

Harvey eventually heard him in the bullpen, and then Kyle's voice as well; the room was dark, the two of them the only ones left, Kyle's cubicle lamp illuminating him at his desk and Mike leaning on the partition. He knew he wasn't supposed to hear -- there was a reason the associates were kept separate from the mid-levels and partners, which in reality had very little to do with how annoying they could be. The newbies, the scuts, needed somewhere to blow off steam, somewhere they could be human sometimes. A place that was theirs.

Harvey could relate.

But he still lingered in the hallway just outside, listening. Because fuck Kyle Durant and his associate-puppy neediness thing that apparently drew Mike like a moth to a flame.

"Okay, I say we show up on her doorstep tomorrow morning, barge into her place, and hit her with everything we've got," Kyle said. "You know, really put the wham on her. She'll be arrested, she'll go down if she doesn't talk, we want a statement right now."

"Or we could just ask her," Mike answered mildly, leaning on the edge of Kyle's cubicle.

"What?"

"Ask her. You know. Say please," Mike continued.

Kyle gave him the most skeptical look Harvey had ever seen on someone below junior-partner level.

"Look, she's a civic-minded person," Mike said, waving a sheaf of paper at Kyle. "She recycles, she gives to charities regularly, she has a compost pile in her backyard. She votes, for crying out loud."

"So? I vote," Kyle replied, perplexed. "Don't you?"

"Well, yeah, but most people don't."

"Who doesn't vote?"

"Like sixty percent of America?" Mike replied. "Sixty-five percent in New York."

"Seriously?" Kyle sounded genuinely shocked.

"You vote, but you don't read the news?" Mike sighed. "Okay, we're getting off track. Let's try this: good cop bad cop with a twist."

Kyle looked interested.

"Good cop invites her to the office. Offers her coffee. Politely asks her to help, tells her she'll be a civil hero, a whistleblower, that she'll be preventing another Enron," Mike said. " _If_ that doesn't work, bad cop sweeps in and kicks her ass."

"Dibs on bad cop," Kyle said immediately. Harvey saw where this was going and grinned.

"Nope," Mike replied.

"What? But you _want_ to be the good cop!"

"But you need the practice," Mike replied. "So you have to be the good cop. And if you do it right, I won't have to be the bad cop at all."

"Mike," Kyle whined.

"You're building a skill set, dumbass. Be the good cop. You might like it."

"I'm pretty sure I won't." Kyle heaved a sigh. "Okay, let's roleplay."

"Excuse me?" Mike actually leaned back. Harvey inwardly cheered.

"Roleplay! If I have to be the good cop I want practice not ripping her face off."

"You're such a creep," Mike told him.

"So you pretend to be her, and I'll pretend to be me pretending to be you," Kyle said.

"Come on, take this seriously," Mike insisted.

"I am!"

"Seriously, Kyle," Mike repeated, leaning forward again. "This isn't a joke. It won't be when I ask you to good cop her and you fail miserably at being good."

"I'm not going to fail."

"You better not."

"So, let's do this."

And that was less funny. It was always less funny when Mike somehow lawyer-whispered Kyle into doing what he wanted, because there was this weird vibe where Kyle seemed to want to do what Mike wanted purely because Mike was the one who wanted it.

Harvey decided not to stick around. Roleplaying was invariably depressing, because it reminded him that even lawyers sometimes acted like six year olds. Besides, he didn't want to watch Mike smile in approval whenever Kyle did something vaguely human.


	17. Chapter 17

Harvey didn't hate Travis Tanner. He didn't like him, but he didn't hate him.

All lawyers played dirty, or at least at Harvey's level they did. But that was the joy of the law: finding ways to bend it, to circle it, to use it and its imprecisions to convict or acquit, to win.

Still, there were lines that Harvey would not cross, lines put in place to protect not just the client but the law itself. He would never taint, withhold, or fabricate evidence; he would never perjure himself, or cause one of his clients to do so. Where was the fun in that, where was the joy in it? It was just brute force, at that point. He might threaten or intimidate people, but only on the stand, and only in himself -- not sending thugs to do it as Tanner had done.

But he didn't hate Travis Tanner because at the very least Tanner was a challenge. And it felt so very, very good to defeat him. It felt good to win, to stand there with Mike at his elbow and tell his client that Tanner had settled, that they would receive two million dollars each for their suffering, for the indignity to which they'd been subjected.

"Come on, let's go to Rollo's, I want to tell Junior how awesome I am," Mike said, when they were back in the car, Harvey controlled but almost dizzy from success, Mike one blatant, visible, vibrating nerve. He was opening his mouth to say yes when Mike added, "We can bring Kyle."

Harvey narrowed his eyes, but Mike was already taking his phone out and didn't notice.

"What is he now, your project?" Harvey asked.

"He has no experience in not being offensive," Mike said, shrugging. "I'd like to have more than one friend at the firm, and it might be nice for him to find out what it's like to have friends at all."

Friends. Sure.

He couldn't exactly deny that Kyle's obnoxiousness was declining rapidly since Mike's arrival, but that didn't mean he had to like their so-called 'friendship'. Mike had been his, a private, secret thing, and now if Jessica or Louis or one of the other partners wanted Mike, he had to answer to them. If Mike decided to hang out with Kyle, Harvey had to _share him_ , and it set his teeth on edge in a way sharing Mike with Junior and his other friends never had. Perhaps because Harvey had never been forced to see it.

For the love of God, Mike asked Kyle what he wanted on the pizza they were getting. When Harvey had been an associate he'd eaten whatever was brought to him and liked it.

"So there's this place in Cambridge," Kyle said, as they ate. "Pinnochio's."

"The square pizza," Harvey agreed, trying to silence him. Mike seemed confused, so Harvey added, "It's legendary at Harvard."

"This is almost as good," Kyle said, and Harvey saw Mike bridle at the implication anywhere was better than Rollo's. Harvey's memories of Pinnochio's were faded with time, but he was pretty sure it wasn't so much that it had been better, just that whenever they went there they'd all been hungrier. The law was a precise endeavor, and one that made you starving after ten or twelve hours of it.

"You should come up with me next time there's an alumni event," Kyle told Mike, and it was Harvey's turn to bridle. Nobody was going to show Harvard to Mike except him. "Have a look around, see where everyone you work with got their JD."

Harvey snapped, but he had a lot of self control, so he just nudged the empty beer pitcher at him and ordered him to get a refill.

He drank more of the refill than either Mike or Kyle, and probably a lot more than he should have in general. He wasn't quite unsteady on his feet, but the world was a little...blurry, and he was quiet in the cab he and Mike were splitting until he got home. Mike was quiet too; Harvey wondered if he'd taken his jealousy for annoyance, if he thought Harvey was somehow angry with him. He didn't want that. They'd done good work, and it wasn't Mike's fault if he was attracted to Kyle.

"Come up?" he invited, when they were close to his place, just to show there were no hard feelings. "Nightcap, get the taste of beer out of your mouth. You can have the couch," he offered magnanimously. Mike seemed wary, but he could see lust for Harvey's couch in his eyes.

"Are you annoyed I invited Kyle along tonight?" Mike asked as they had their one last drink, which just went to show Harvey had been right -- Mike knew he was jealous, and wanted it out in the open.

Well, another few mouthfuls of scotch and that wouldn't be a problem.

"I tend to think he's not worth your time," Harvey said. "But you're entitled to like who you like," he added, feeling generous.

"I don't like him," Mike said, which...well, you could have fooled Harvey. "I feel bad for him, because he's emotionally stunted and has all the maturity of a labrador retriever."

"It's dangerous to care about people," Harvey warned, not that he thought it would do any good. Besides, if Mike didn't care, he wouldn't be Mike, and they wouldn't be here.

"Yeah, I hear your no-emotions bullshit all day at work, but I'm not buying that sale," Mike replied.

Harvey leaned in to tell him something, to whisper in his ear not to let his secret out -- maybe he even managed to say it, he wasn't sure. But the closeness of their bodies, the way Mike held so still, almost quivering, the frustration of the night and so many nights before and the demanding insistence of his ego that he lay claim to at least some part of Mike, that he stop screwing around and at the very least _beat Kyle_ to this...it all washed over him at once.

He was proud of moving deftly, of being physically smooth in this. He slid an arm around Mike's waist, turned them so that he could lean on the counter and tug Mike into the curl of his body, and kissed him, one hand behind his head to hold him there.

For five, perhaps six seconds it was wonderful. There was the thrill of a new partner, the satisfaction of feeling someone new open under him and give in, the utter catharsis of finally, finally having Mike.

And then Mike swore and pushed back, pushed away, and Harvey let him go. Mike looked, at the least, shocked, and the warm feeling of triumph fled in the face of reality:

He was drunk, he was ten years older than Mike, he was _not enough_. They came from different worlds, or at least lived in different ones now. He was threatening their friendship. And Mike was probably straight.

Harvey licked his lips slowly. Well, never say die.

"I'm not sorry I did that," he said, easing himself away from Mike, sliding down the counter and pushing himself off. "I'm just sorry it didn't go the way I'd hoped. Won't happen again, don't worry," he added. And then, with the clarity of regret, "You wouldn't believe how much I had to drink to get this far."

Mike said something, something he barely heard, about talking it over in the morning, which was frustrating, and going to bed, which Harvey would like to do, except Mike meant the couch. And he hugged him, and Harvey wasn't so controlled he wouldn't accept that, at least. Might be all he'd ever get.

He changed quietly in the bedroom, listening to Mike in the other room, arranging blankets and pillows on the couch. He waited until Mike was settled there before he lay down himself on the bed, lacing his fingers across the crown of his head and thinking -- thinking too much, really.

The urge to fight it out, to counter-argue, was an instinctive thing, a lawyer thing. What if Mike didn't understand? They'd talked at cross-purposes before. He wanted Mike to get that this wouldn't ruin them, that there was still a place between colleagues and lovers where they could -- could have their movie nights and eat ribs and crack jokes and it would be okay. He could move on, Mike could move on, and this could be an awkward drunken fumble they forgot.

Except Mike never forgot anything.

Harvey wanted him so badly, the way he'd never wanted another man even when he'd wanted men at all. Not even for the sex, though the sex he was sure would be great, the best kind where they would be funny and awkward, where it would mean something more than just a good time. It was selfish, to want to be everything for this weird kid who delivered pizza and had a mind like an icepick, but then Harvey was a selfish man.

 _Greed, for lack of a better word, is good._

Harvey liked the chase, but there had been no chase here, just a slow build turning to a burn in his belly. A friendship that had drawn him out of himself at a time he'd desperately needed that, even if he hadn't wanted to admit it.

If he wanted a man he could have one, now, but he wanted _that specific_ man, and he couldn't have that, and he couldn't even make a compelling closing argument.

Screw it.

Harvey lay there for a little while longer, waiting to be sober enough to be coherent, but finally gave up. Mike was bound to be asleep; he'd just...

Pathetically check on him or something.

But when he walked out into the living room, lingering by the door, Mike sat up as if he hadn't slept at all. Harvey, warily, sat down next to him.

He was a closer. That was what he did. He could do this.

He tried to choose his words carefully, to reassure him that at the very least, what he'd done for Mike hadn't been done with ulterior motives. That Mike deserved what he had been given, was earning it day by day. It didn't come out as well as he would have liked, though he thought he was doing decently at least --

"But the truth is also that I fell for you a long time ago," he heard himself say.

Shit.

Harvey felt he was recovering pretty well, layering on another reassurance that this wouldn't come to work with them, that he should have known Mike was straight, when Mike interrupted.

"I've been with guys before," he said.

Jeez, kid, twist the knife.

"In that case, just...not into me," Harvey concluded, looking away.

"Harvey, look at me," Mike ordered (ordered!) and Harvey turned reluctantly, ready to defend his case --

Mike's lips pressed against his, nose tucked against his cheekbone, eyes closed. It caught him enough by surprise that he barely had time to respond, but then Mike tried to pull away and Harvey followed.

Mike, later, always claimed that there was an entire conversation which followed that kiss, a conversation about commitment and risk. He claimed he'd quoted _Jerry Maguire_ to break the tension. Harvey wasn't sure if Mike was playing some kind of long-form joke on him, but he didn't remember anything Mike said he said.

He just remembered follwing Mike down onto the couch and crawling over him, holding him still so he could take what he wanted. So that he could kiss Mike, taste him (scotch and pizza, not the finest combination, Harvey could have cared less), get his shirt off or at least up and feel skin, trace his fingers up Mike's ribcage and press his face into the dip where it ended.

Safe.

Home.

 _Mine._

He didn't realize he'd stopped moving until Mike lifted a hand to cradle his head there, and then he didn't even want to move. That he was allowed to do this at all was enough.

They ended up in bed, eventually, too tired and still drunk, falling asleep without anything more -- just kisses, and drifting slowly off with Harvey's lips still pressed against Mike's neck.


	18. Chapter 18

And then there was sex.

So much sex. Months' worth, making up for lost time, amazing sex. Sex in the bed, making out against the glass wall of his bedroom (assprints on the glass, but it wouldn't be the first time), groping Mike in the kitchen because he could. And that was just the weekend.

Saturday morning they ordered in. When there was a knock on the door around eleven-thirty, Mike yelled from the bedroom, "If you answer the door in your underwear I'll slug you!"

"That was a show for you!" Harvey called back, already pulling on a shirt.

"Yeah, well, I know that now!"

The delivery driver was a pink-haired woman Harvey recognized as Shawna, a friend of Mike's and the one who usually brought his food when Mike didn't, back when he'd worked delivery. She smiled at him, smiled bigger at the size of the tip, and casually asked, "Mike around?"

Harvey gave her a narrow look.

"In the bedroom," he said.

Shawna laughed and punched him in the shoulder, which hurt, but he'd already tipped her, so he let it go.

"I'm so telling Junior," she told him, and Harvey closed the door.

Mike wandered out, wearing a pair of Harvey's pajama pants, and fell on the half-plate of ribs like he'd never seen food before. Harvey, chewing on a slice of pizza, watched him with an expression that, if he weren't _Harvey Specter_ , he supposed could have been mistaken for fondness.

"So you seriously don't like pizza?" he asked.

Mike shrugged, mouth smeared with barbecue sauce. "You spend six years delivering it and it loses its appeal."

"More for me," Harvey said, cramming the rest of the slice into his mouth.

"You didn't get onions, did you?"

"Mm." Harvey swallowed and bent down, licking the corner of Mike's mouth clean of sauce. "For you, I forego onions."

"You're a true paragon of humanity," Mike replied.

And Sunday afternoon, when he really should have been checking his email, prepping for Monday, Harvey stretched out on the bed instead, Mike's hand flat in the small of his back. Mike kissed his neck and slicked a finger into his ass.

He'd done this to women before, though rarely; never to men (at least not before last night, when Mike had said he was 'adequate' in that infuriating tone which just egged Harvey on until Mike had stopped talking completely). And he'd never had it done to him. The pressure, the _presence_ , wasn't overwhelming yet, but...

"Easy," Mike murmured, rubbing his other hand against his back. "You don't like it, that's okay, we don't have to."

"Why," Harvey breathed, shifting a little, "would anyone want to _stop_ this?"

Mike laughed. "I can't believe you've never done it," he said. "All those one-night stands, and not one of them ever wanted to peg you?"

"That's more of a third-date suggestion," Harvey answered, and then arched when Mike twisted his finger, started to add another one.

"Your third dates are a lot more interesting than mine," Mike said.

"I think we are proving, here, that they really weren't -- _fuck_ ," Harvey added, because Mike had curled his fingers.

"Good or bad?" Mike asked.

"Hmm?" Harvey managed. A little shiver of pleasure had just raced straight up his spine from his dick and deactivated probably most of his brain. If he got brain damage from sex...

Well, okay, it would probably be worth it.

"Harvey?" Mike asked, sounding worried.

"Do that again," Harvey ordered.

They did it again. A _lot._

Donna knew immediately. It was uncanny and actually kind of worrying. Then again, this was the woman who'd sent him off to meet Scotty with condoms in his briefcase like some kind of deranged sack lunch, so he supposed they were past the point of no return with regards to his sexual privacy.

The possessiveness he'd felt in the past two days was equally worrying, if not more so. He wasn't usually a fan of intense relationships, and there was a small itch in the back of his mind that warned him not to fuck this up by trying too hard not to fuck it up. It didn't help that today was the scheduled day for Mike and Kyle to do their little good cop bad cop dance with the would-be whistleblower, because Kyle was actually really good at manipulation and would probably do well and then Mike would _smile_ at him.

On the other hand, Harvey treasured deeply the moment when Mike had described Kyle as emotionally stunted with the maturity level of a labrador retriever. So he let the boys have their fun, and watched from enough distance that he wouldn't spook the client.

"Is that a cellphone in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" Donna asked, joining him in the hallway. Harvey held up his cellphone. "And you aren't even happy to see me. You're happy to watch your little genius and his chew toy."

"Technically Kyle's my chew toy."

"Mmhm. Maybe once Mike softens him up a little, you can turn him into a real live lawyer," she replied. She was silent for a little while. "Harvey, this is going to be good, isn't it?"

He could hear what she was asking, and he didn't honestly know yet. How could he? How could anyone? But he trusted Mike, and he was pretty confident in, if not his relationship skills, his interpersonal skills in general.

"I think so," he said.

"Because if you two don't work out, the custody battle for Kyle's going to be really ugly."

Harvey rolled his eyes. Donna laughed and walked off.

Those first few weeks, he felt like everyone knew, that everyone could tell, in a visceral and uncomfortable way that he hadn't ever felt when everyone thought they were sleeping together and they weren't. He'd meet with opposing counsel and have the sudden stray thought that this guy knew he'd sucked dick last night. That woman knew he had a boyfriend and wasn't sexually into her.

The third time it happened, he also thought, _well, screw him then. I get Mike and he doesn't._

He blasted the guy into next week and got an outrageously inflated settlement for his client.

The first time a cocktail waitress smiled at him, he flirted with her by reflex, and watched her ass as she walked away.

"She's cute," Mike said, and Harvey froze. After a second he glanced at Mike and faked relaxation he didn't feel in the slightest. Mike sipped his drink. "Bored with me already?"

Harvey just stared at him. The smile that spread across Mike's face was downright mean.

"You're kind of a dick," Harvey told him.

"I'm not the one who just made a pass at his boyfriend's waitress," Mike pointed out, and then broke down and laughed. "Dude, I've seen you with nineteen different women. I get that you might have some hard-to-break habits. Relax."

"One, that's creepy even with your freak memory, don't ever tell me again that you kept count. Two, don't call me dude."

"You remember that one who wore your bathrobe?"

"No."

"Oh man, I've never wanted to be the trois in a menage so bad before."

"Are you into that?" Harvey asked, frowning.

"In porn, sure. In real life..." Mike set his drink down, and his voice dropped low, "...I don't plan on sharing you. So, seriously. Ass watching? Fine by me. Just don't get ideas."

The waitress wrote her phone number on the credit card receipt. Harvey left his copy with the bill when they walked out.


	19. Chapter 19

The thing about Kyle, really -- and Mike agreed with Harvey on this, not that he'd ever expressed his opinions on Kyle to Mike, but Mike talked about Kyle and Harvey was more or less fine with that now that they'd established Mike belonged to _him_ \--

The thing that they both felt but only Mike vocalized about Kyle was that it was kind of amazing he was there at all.

Kyle had come from the kind of family where he was given anything he wanted at any time; bad manners were dismissed as 'high spirits' and the expensive private schools he'd attended often looked the other way over petty crimes when you were the son of a major donor. He'd had a legacy admission to Harvard Law.

But he had also, clearly, from the age of fifteen, wanted to be a lawyer. He'd worked for his mock trial wins, and at Harvard he'd been third in his class, which wasn't something they gave you for looking pretty. And he had applied afterward to join Pearson Hardman, a firm where his family had no political pull, in a city where his family network didn't exist (they were decendants of Boston Brahmins and European gentry, and too high-class to talk to anyone from _Manhattan_ ).

As annoying as Kyle was, as much as he whined about work that was beneath him, he'd do it if he had to, and he'd do it happily if Mike told him to. It was undeniable that there was something in him that put him a cut above his colleagues, and Mike felt it was worth nurturing.

Also, he made a great diversion.

"Rachel's not going to be happy until she either knows who I'm dating or sleeps with me," Mike said glumly, head resting on his arms. It was kind of an inappropriate gesture for the most in-demand booth at the very expensive restaurant where they were dining. At least, Harvey thought, the food hadn't been brought yet.

"I thought everyone thought you were sleeping with me," Harvey replied, sipping his wine.

"Harvey, I _am_ sleeping with you."

"Yes, I was there for that," Harvey answered. "Are you deliberately missing the point? Because we should establish right now that unnecessary obtuseness doesn't turn me on."

Mike lifted his head and glared. Harvey calmly sipped his wine again.

"You've known Rachel for a long time, right?" Mike asked.

"Not especially. She came in five years ago, but we haven't worked together much. Donna says she's the most discreet paralegal in the firm, which is why I had her do your contract." He set his wine down. "So...just so I'm clear, she made the pass at you, not the other way around?"

Mike looked shifty. "I might have...flirted a little. Just to get some research assistance!" he added, when Harvey narrowed his eyes.

"You outrank her."

"Which as both she and Louis reminded me does not mean I get to demand her services."

"But she definitely was the one who asked you out? You didn't accidentally ask her out? Because that's the kind of thing you sometimes do," Harvey said.

"I didn't slip and fall into a date with Rachel!"

Harvey decided this probably called for the actual bottle of wine.

"What did you tell her when she asked?" he asked, intrigued despite himself.

"I told her I was seeing someone."

"And she asked who?"

"And I told her I'd rather not say."

"Why didn't you just tell her it was none of her god damned -- right," Harvey sighed, as Mike gave him a wide-eyed look. "I keep forgetting, you're the nice one."

"You said Donna said she's discreet. Maybe we should just tell her."

"That genie's pretty hard to put back into the bottle," Harvey said. "You should set her up with someone."

"Because that wouldn't be blatantly obvious," Mike replied.

"Not if you do it right. Make Kyle take her out."

"I don't _make_ Kyle do anything," Mike said. "Besides, I wouldn't inflict him on her."

"Consider it the next step in your training program to turn him into someone people don't hate on sight. Tell Rachel that, in fact. I bet she loves to do charitable work," Harvey added, smirking.

"Be nice."

"But you like it so much more when I'm not," Harvey murmured, leaning forward.

"Well, I've never seen you any other way," Mike murmured back, in an exact echo of his tone.

"Am I being mocked?" Harvey wondered.

"Of course not. I'm the nice one, remember?" Mike said. At which point the food arrived, and Harvey took out his annoyance over people continually trying to date his boyfriend on his rare steak.

He kept an eye on Rachel for a few days, which was how he knew that Kyle had asked her out and that Mike had slunk along after Kyle did so in order to convince Rachel that however big a douchebag Kyle was, he was a work in progress and Mike personally promised to break his fingers if he was less than a gentleman.

"No groping, no propositioning, and if she tells you not to do something, don't do it," Mike said to Kyle that Friday evening. Why they had to have the relationship advice lecture in Harvey's office rather than, oh say, _never_ , was a mystery to Harvey.

"What if she's up for it though?" Kyle asked.

"What exactly is she going to be up for on a first date with someone she barely likes?" Harvey said, head bent over a brief he was drafting.

"How do you know she doesn't like me?"

"Because nobody likes you, Kyle," Harvey replied without looking up.

"That's not true. I'm sure your mother loves you," Mike told Kyle. "Also don't be a super-competitive douchebag. You don't have to win dates. Nobody wins dates."

"I win dates," Harvey murmured.

"Sorry what was that? I couldn't hear you over the roar of your giant ego," Mike said, cupping an ear.

"Me and my ego would like to be left in peace," Harvey answered pointedly.

"Are you sure about that?" Mike asked, in a voice that very clearly said Harvey could be going home alone tonight, if he wanted. Harvey sat back, regarding both of them calmly.

"Learn from the master," he said. "The point of dating isn't to get laid."

Mike gave him the most hilariously incredulous look ever. Admittedly, coming from Harvey, that was probably a startling philosophy.

"The point of going out with someone, having wine, having a nice meal, wearing great clothes, being seen, is the end in itself," Harvey continued. "In the moment, you're enjoying yourself, making a connection. You're not there to reach a goal. You can jerk off anytime. The date is the goal. _That's_ how you win at dating."

Kyle glanced at Mike.

"Also, lots of women really dig on a guy who doesn't seem that interested in fucking them," Harvey added, leaning forward and picking up a pen, bending back to his paperwork.

"See, that part makes sense to me," Kyle told Mike, who pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Whatever keeps you from copping a feel before dessert arrives," he sighed. "I'm so going to owe Rachel forever for vouching for you. Go, win at dating," he added, and Kyle hurried out of the office.

Nobody was more surprised than Mike when Kyle managed to get a second date out of her, and certainly everyone was surprised when they made it six months without Kyle taking a lasting injury to a sensitive area of his body. Harvey was busy being surprised he and Mike had made it almost seven, but he wasn't going to complain.

"Danger, Will Robinson," Donna announced one day in early December, leaning into his office doorway.

"What?" Harvey asked, looking up.

"I just passed Rachel telling Mike about Kyle taking her to the 'winter party'," Donna said.

"You mean the Thinly Veiled Christmas Debauch?" Harvey inquired. "How soap opera. So?"

"She has that double-date gleam in her eye," Donna said, and Harvey got up quickly. "Rescue him."

"On it," he answered as he passed.

He found Rachel and Mike in her office, and he paused outside the door, out of Rachel's sightline.

"...bringing anyone?" Rachel was asking, as he approached.

"Oh, you know, I was thinking of going stag," Mike answered.

"Aren't you seeing someone?"

"Well, yeah, but..." Harvey saw Mike shrug. "You know, these parties, they're all lawyers drinking."

"You should bring her," Rachel said. "We could double-date. Get a limo, do dinner first, have an afterparty..."

"I hear Seth's going with some hottie from Research," Mike suggested.

"Do you seriously want to see me suffer through Seth and Kyle trying to one-up each other all night?" Rachel asked drily. "Come on, Mike! It'll be fun."

"He's taken," Harvey said, coming to lean against the doorjamb. Both of them started, looking up, Mike especially panicked. "Is he trying to be tactful again?"

"You're taking him?" Rachel asked, with a curious headtilt.

"He's working. We're tag-teaming Branton into agreeing to the new contract," Harvey said. "Mike's trying valiantly not to bitch as much as he wants to."

Mike made a helpless gesture in Rachel's direction.

"So, no afterparty with champagne you swiped from the open bar," Harvey added.

"I would never," Rachel said solemnly.

"Yeah, last year must have been a fluke," Harvey said, just as solemnly. "Playtime's over, Mike, this isn't the prom. Chop chop, work to do."

 _Sorry_ , Mike mouthed at her, and then, when they were walking back down the hallway towards Harvey's office, he said, "Were you saving me from having to double-date with Kyle or from having to find a beard?"

"Happily, I managed both," Harvey said. "Also that wasn't a lie, we have to put the screws to Branton. He's a cheapskate and he's not paying us what we're worth."

"Do you even feel the slightest bit squirmy about lying about our relationship to, oh, everyone?"

"No. Why, do you?"

"Thank God. I was worried it was just me."

Harvey stopped him in the hallway and drew back against the wall, waiting for someone to pass.

"You're really okay with this?" he asked.

"Ugh, firm parties, are you kidding me?" Mike made a face. "I'd rather be working."

"I'm not ashamed of you," Harvey said. Mike's face softened.

"It's private," he said. "I like it that way. I'd like it that way even if I were seeing a woman outside the firm. Everyone's in everyone else's business here. I know it's the culture, but..." he shrugged. "I like that nobody knows. I like that you're mine."

Which was great, that was fine, it was what Harvey thought and wouldn't say if you paid him, and it lasted for another twelve whole days. Because Mike was designed to tempt fate.

They'd taken Clive Branton out to dinner before the party, and Harvey wasn't the best closer in the city for nothing. By the time they were in a limo on the way to the party, Branton was signing on the dotted line (using Mike's newly-bought Mont Blanc pen). The point of the party, as Harvey had indicated while closing, could be to celebrate their new contract.

Mike's job was to make sure Branton had a good time, while Harvey did the necessary Senior Partner rounds and the unnecessary but entertaining poking of Louis. It wasn't a real party until he made Louis desperately want a drink. But once Mike had sent Branton home in the limo, and the party had begun to thin out a little, Harvey drifted naturally over to the table where Mike was leaning, sipping a scotch.

"You're getting better at looking like you don't want a beer," Harvey remarked.

"How do all lawyers not die of cirrhosis?"

"I imagine a lot of them do."

"Here, you finish," Mike said, sliding the drink across. Harvey picked up the glass, twisting it slightly, and sipped from where Mike's lips had been a moment before. Mike's eyes darkened.

"Can we leave yet?" he asked.

"You're incredibly easy," Harvey replied.

"Lucky for you," Mike said, and took the glass from his hand, setting it down.

They left together, but that wasn't so unusual; no reason they couldn't be splitting a cab. Except that outside, Mike gripped his sleeve and pulled him out of the harsh lights under the restaurant awning, into the shadows, and kissed him.

It was stupid and risky and normally Harvey wouldn't -- normally if they were in the office, even late at night, he'd pull back and shake his head. But they'd signed Branton and the alcohol was warm in his stomach and it was dark here, so he went along, kissed Mike's mouth and nipped at his lower lip. He cradled his face in his palms, anticipating the rest of the night to stretch out with him in bed and trace fingers on skin, relearn for the thousandth time every part of his body.

"Harvey! I'm glad I caught you, I -- "

Harvey jerked back, looking up; Kyle was standing at the edge of the awning's light, staring wide-eyed at them.

"I...was just..." Kyle gestured over his shoulder and started to turn. Harvey rolled his eyes, reached out, and grabbed Kyle's wrist. "Oh man, I _knew_ it!" Kyle blurted. Harvey broke away from Mike, who was just staring at Kyle like an idiot, and stepped up close.

"Seven months. _Not_ before he was hired. Not a perk. Not the business of anyone else," he said in a low voice. "Any other questions?"

Kyle swallowed. "Who knows?"

"Donna."

"That's it?"

"Let me rephrase," Harvey said. "Donna knows. You don't know. You don't actually know. You understand?"

"Harvey," Mike finally sighed, pushed off from the wall and disentangled Harvey's fingers from Kyle's wrist. "God, it's like I'm housetraining you both. Kyle, I'm sorry you saw that. The _not asshole_ way to deal with this situation is for Harvey not to threaten you. On your part, you need to understand that this is private, and it would be cruel for you to turn this into an information commodity or cheap gossip."

Kyle's mouth moved, vaguely, but no sound came out.

"The way to see this," Mike continued, "Is as an opportunity for you to prove your discretion as a lawyer and your decency as a man."

"Of -- of course," Kyle stammered. Mike gave him an encouraging look. "I think, I think it's, um, good. Did you close Branton?"

"Yes," Mike said, even as Harvey was opening his mouth for a sarcastic remark. "Now, I bet Rachel's waiting on you. See you on Monday, okay?"

Kyle nodded and hurried away. Harvey watched, feeling Mike's hand rise to rest on the nape of his neck, thumb rubbing soothingly against his hairline.

"More than one way to close a deal," Mike said quietly.

"So glad we now have Kyle's seal of approval on our relationship," Harvey replied. "That's what was really missing, my useless associate's statement that we're 'good'."

"He's not useless anymore, we both know that. Come on," Mike added, tugging him towards the curb. "Let's get a cab and go home."


	20. Chapter 20

On Monday, Kyle stopped at Harvey's office. After looking at his face, Donna let him through. He came in like a guilty schoolboy.

"I just wanted to say..." Kyle said when Harvey looked up. He spread his hands, let them fall. "You're lucky to have him."

He almost rolled his eyes and told Kyle to scram, but instead he said, "I know."

"So. Okay," Kyle added, and turned to go.

"Kyle. Sit down," Harvey said, gesturing to the chair across from his desk. Kyle sat nervously.

"I want you to understand this is not a bribe," Harvey said. "This isn't an incentive. Last week -- _before_ the party -- I brought your work to Jessica's attention during a year-end review. She's impressed with your improvement."

"Thank you," Kyle said.

"This morning I signed off on a transfer for you," Harvey added, passing a folder across.

"Harvey, I'm not going to -- "

"Be quiet," Harvey ordered. Kyle shut his mouth. "We've agreed it's time for you to move on. You'll finish out the fiscal year in the associate program, and then you'll be shifted to mid-level on a Partner track in April."

Kyle's eyes widened. "Partner track?"

"Try to act unsurprised. Modesty doesn't suit you," Harvey said. "Besides, that's just a track. You have a long time ahead of you before that happens, _if_ it happens at all."

"I'm on Partner track," Kyle mumbled to himself happily, studying the folder.

"Do not make me regret this."

Kyle looked up. "I won't tell."

Harvey gave him a thin smile. "That wasn't what I meant. Everyone will be aware you were my associate. Don't screw around. Make sure you show them I actually crammed some knowledge into your head."

"Of course," Kyle nodded.

"This is to be considered confidential until you're transferred. It also doesn't mean you get to slack off until then."

"Does Mike know?"

"He's probably going to hug you," Harvey sighed. "You can have eight minutes to cry or call your parents or something and then I want your ass in your seat, at your cubicle, working on the proofs I left there on Friday."

Kyle nodded. "Uh -- thank you, you won't regret it."

"I'd better not. Out."

As soon as Kyle was gone, Donna walked into the office.

"Not a word," Harvey said, without looking away from his laptop.

"He's right, you know," she answered. "Actually I think you probably don't deserve Mike."

"Yeah. I'm working on that," Harvey sighed.


	21. Chapter 21

Mike's grandmother loved him on sight. Harvey hadn't been worried at all.

He checked in on her, the day Mike left for Cambridge, for Harvard; Mike had gone and said his goodbyes already and come home red-eyed, and they'd curled up together on the couch, talking softly about Harvard, about the following day's train journey.

Harvey had initially wanted to come and help him get settled, but Mike was worried about leaving the Klein deposition to someone other than Harvey and he'd said, when he bought the train ticket, that he didn't want Harvey there.

"I don't want you to leave me there," he'd said, while Harvey sat in shocked, hurt silence. "I'd rather get there and have a call to look forward to." He'd looked up at Harvey through his eyelashes, which he knew very well was a dirty trick. "I need you on the other end of the line for this one."

Harvey had nodded, the hurt fading. He'd slipped his old Harvard t-shirt, which Mike liked to sleep in, into his luggage while he wasn't looking.

"Did you see Gram?" was Mike's first question, as soon as Harvey answered the phone.

"I love you too," Harvey told him pointedly. "Yes, I looked in, she's fine, she's scorching the newbies at backgammon."

"They'll learn," Mike said with a laugh. Harvey could hear floorboards creaking; he pictured Mike wandering around the small furnished apartment he'd rented, the one that in the photos he'd shown Harvey looked like a closet with windows. "How are you?"

"I'm throwing an orgy tonight. Don't worry, I'll put plastic down."

"Make sure you have some chicks. Nobody wants a sausagefest at an orgy."

"Ladies get in free," Harvey said, staring out the glass wall at Manhattan. Most of Mike's stuff was still here -- he'd taken the minimum necessary, since he'd only be there five months -- but it was easier to look at the city, and not at Mike's epic collection of really bad scifi novels on the shelf. "How's the new place?"

"It's nice. Great view. Haven't unpacked yet, but I can do that tomorrow after the transfer student orientation." Mike was quiet for a moment. "I miss you."

"I miss you too," Harvey said.

"Hence the orgy?" Mike asked.

Harvey laughed a little. "Yeah."

"This is why I wanted a phone call," Mike said, and Harvey could hear the tension in his voice. "You get it now?"

"Hey, Mike," Harvey murmured. "It's okay. I get it."

There was a soft snuffle on the other end of the line.

"Are you crying?" Harvey asked. "Michael, there's no crying at Harvard." He put on his best Tom Hanks, which was pretty good though he said it himself. "There's no _crying_ at _Harvard!_ "

Mike laughed damply. "God, you insensitive prick."

"Pull it together, pizza guy. Which reminds me, you eat yet? I'm thinking your total wimp moment just now might be hunger."

"No, I ate. Ordered in."

"Yeah? What'd you get?" Harvey sat down on the couch.

"Pinnochio's."

"And?"

"Kyle's a lying liar, Rollo's is way better."

"That's what you get for befriending him," Harvey said smugly. "You going to email him?"

"I'm emailing Rachel. Burns are always worse coming from your girlfriend."

"I'm so glad I'm sleeping with someone whose idea of social diplomacy originates in the dark heart of the fifth grade."

"Oh, hey, that reminds me -- not the fifth grade part, the sleeping together part -- you want to have phone sex?"

Harvey considered this. "No."

"Not even a little?"

"Not even phone light petting."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm hanging up now, Mike."

"Because I'm probably really good at it, I have a visual memory."

"I'll see you next weekend."

"That's too long. You want me to send you naked pictures?"

"I love you, Mike, goodbye," Harvey said, and hung up. About thirty seconds later a text message appeared.

 _I love you too._


	22. Epilogue

Harvey hadn't thought of Donna as the kind of woman who'd want a huge wedding; he figured if she ever found a man worthy of her greatness, they'd elope to Vegas and he'd get a drunk-dial during sex. He'd been sort of looking forward to that.

On the other hand, sometimes there was nothing as satisfying as a huge amount of pomp and circumstance.

Rooey -- whose real name was Angus Rulahan, so Harvey could see why he'd accepted a ridiculous nickname -- wanted a kilt and full regalia, the black coat and the dagger in the sock and everything. Easy enough; apparently you could rent kilts in Manhattan (because if you couldn't get it in Manhattan for at least an hour, it probably didn't exist).

Donna started shopping for gowns. She got halfway through the first Bride Magazine before giving Harvey a look of utter despair. They were all so...dainty.

"What kind of wedding would you have?" she asked, sitting back in one of his office chairs.

"County Clerk's office, with you as witness, and then drinking myself into a stupor so I could forget what I'd just done," he said, swiveling around. She gave him a look. "I'd wear a clean shirt?"

"Boy, Mike is a lucky man."

"You say that like I wouldn't have to convince him to wear a clean shirt too." Harvey shrugged. He hadn't been up to see Mike last week -- midterms -- and he was a little jumpy. "I don't want to do the whole tuxedos and reception thing. Marriage is a legal contract. It provides certain rights and benefits, that's all." He considered it. "If Mike wanted the tuxedo, I'd do that for him. Otherwise I'm not really interested."

Donna narrowed her eyes. "Harvey."

"Yes?"

"I wasn't paying attention to anything you just said, so if it was some kind of emotional declaration, sorry about that. Does Rene do your tuxes?"

"He does the tailoring on them. Why?"

"You think he'd make me one?"

Harvey gave her a look that he meant to be purely professional, appraising her body shape, until he realized it looked like he was ogling her hips.

"Can't hurt to ask," he said with a grin.

The result was worth it for Mike's reaction alone, when Donna walked down the aisle to the very traditional organ music, Rooey waiting for her at the altar. After a stunned second, Mike leaned over to him and hissed, " _Donna's in a tux!_ "

"I know," Harvey answered. "I helped her pick it out."

He wasn't sure he approved of all this emotion he'd been forced to endure lately. Between Donna getting married and Mike being gone and also calling at any hour of the day, sometimes sleep-deprived, to tell him he missed him and reiterate his request for phone sex, it felt suspiciously like he was being asked to care all the time.

On the other hand, Mike was down from Cambridge for another two days, and that was a lot of time to spend intimately reacquainting him with several of the surfaces of their condo. Which was much preferable to Mike's undersized apartment where the neighbors tended to applaud after they'd had sex and there might or might not (the debate was ongoing) be mice living in the walls.

Plus, Mike got drunk at the reception and, by the time they were in the town car heading home, had plastered himself warmly against Harvey's side.

"Do you ever think about getting married?" Mike asked, and then clarified, "To me."

"Yes," Harvey lied. He honestly wasn't looking beyond Mike coming home for good, at this point.

"Liar." Mike waved an unsteady finger under his nose. "Such a liar." He nuzzled up against Harvey's shoulder. "Maaaaarry me."

"Not tonight, I have a headache."

"Look, we have rings and everything," Mike said, poking Harvey's ring.

"Do you want a big wedding like that?" Harvey asked, curious.

"Dunno. Do you?"

"No."

"But you would?" Mike asked earnestly. "Marry me?"

Harvey rubbed Mike's hair, making it stick up in the back. "You have to do all the paperwork and planning if we do."

"Okay," Mike agreed, and fell asleep on his shoulder.

Harvey settled back, confident in a distant future that included a very brief trip to a government office and maybe pizza afterwards.

Donna, that unmitigated monster, gave Mike the name of her wedding planner.

END

NO REALLY, THIS TIME THAT IS THE END.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's been reading along, prompting, encouraging, and leaving comments here and on the meme. I hope you've enjoyed the ride, but it is _definitely_ over now. :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] A Series of Covert Disasters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6206251) by [Hebecious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hebecious/pseuds/Hebecious)




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